Beware: Some Applications Won’t Work With New Mac Operating System

From August 2019

We know you have seen this warning many times already. What does it mean? This September macOS Catalina (10.15) will launch and won’t allow 32-bit applications to run, such as Office 2011, some Adobe CS6 (and older) apps, and many others. The purpose of this is to increase computing efficiency by updating the system to a standard of all-64-bit processing. To find out which applications on your computer will be affected do the following:

1. Click on the Apple icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
2. On the drop-down menu click on “About This Mac”. A new window will appear.
3. Click the “System Report” box on the lower left of the window. (This is under the tab you start out with, the “Overview” tab). A new window will appear.
4. On the left side of the window, scroll down and click on “Applications” under “Software”. A list of all applications will appear on the right within the window.
5. If you scroll right in the list you will find a column labeled “64 Bit (Intel)”, under that it will say for every application you have whether it is 64-bit “yes” or 32-bit “no”.

If you want to use a 32-bit application, either update it to 64-bit if possible or do not install the macOS Catalina upgrade. Any current software you are still getting updates for will likely be updated to 64-bit. Old 32-bit software that is not being updated will not work at all on the new operating system. You will either have to buy a newer version or find an alternative.

MACPRACTICE CLIENTS: this is your annual warning to not upgrade the operating system (High Sierra 10.13 to Catalina 10.15, for example) without consulting with us first!

macOS Mojave 10.14.6, the most current version, still runs 32-bit apps, and will still be receiving security updates for the next two years. So, you have two years to figure out what to do about this!