Apple quietly removes support for Intel Macs and MacBooks

If you’re using an older Mac or MacBook with an Intel chip, we’ve got some bad news, as Apple has quietly removed support for any device sold before 2020 that doesn’t have an Arm-based Apple silicon chip (that’s Macs with M1 or newer chips, or the A18 Pro, in the case of the MacBook Neo).

Apple announced macOS 27 Golden Gate at WWDC 2026 and highlighted new features and performance improvements. However, he didn’t reveal which Macs would benefit from the upcoming operating system, which is expected to be released “this fall,” so expect it to be available around October.

Instead, we found a confirmation hidden at the bottom of the macOS news site. This is a bit cheeky, since it’s a major change that will affect a lot of people, although it’s also not that surprising, since it was only a matter of time before Apple dropped support for older Macs.

Goodbye Intel

Here is the list of Macs and MacBooks that will be able to run macOS 27 Golden Gate:

MacBook Air M1 or later
MacBook Pro M1 or later
MacBook Pro 13-inch M1 2020 or later
MacBook Pro 14-inch M1 Pro 2021 or later
MacBook Pro 16-inch M1 Pro 2021 or later
MacBook Neo
iMac M1 2020 or later
Mac mini M1 2020 or later
Mac Studio 2022 and later

By focusing on its own chips, which use the Arm architecture, Apple no longer has to worry about Macs running on Intel’s x86 chip technology, which will hopefully mean the macOS team will have more leeway to improve software performance and add features in the future.

If you have an Intel Mac, you can continue to use it with macOS 26, although it is not recommended to run an older operating system that may not receive security updates in the future. So it might be time to consider a new Mac – see some great deals below.

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