In case you haven’t heard, macOS High Sierra (which we still don’t recommend upgrading to, by the way) is set to be the last major release of Apple’s operating system to support 32-bit applications. This includes both Apps from the Mac App Store as well as those downloaded directly from a developer’s website. Fortunately, most third-party developers are well aware of this impending change and are updating, or have already updated, their apps to support a 64-bit architecture. But it’s still good to make sure that all of your software is going to come with you the next time you upgrade. Read on to find out how.
Starting with High Sierra 10.13.4, your computer will give you notice if an app you’re using is still reliant upon 32-bit frameworks. This warning appears when you launch the app, and only shows up once per application to avoid being overly intrusive. Apple has also made it mandatory that all new apps released on the Mac App Store be 64-bit, and by June 2018 will require the same of any updates to existing applications. Apple is giving plenty of notice, so unless you’re a big fan of an app that’s been more or less abandoned by its developer, you shouldn’t find yourself in hot water.
That’s all well and good, but if you want to know the status of all of your apps right now, we’ve got you covered. Here’s a multistep process to getting a list of your applications and their status.
- Choose About This Mac from the Apple menu at the top left corner of your display.
- Click on the button titled System Report.
- Expand the Software menu in the lefthand column.
- Click the Applications subsection.
- In the main body of the window, check out the list of applications and locate the column titled 64-bit (Intel). (You may have to resize the System Report window, or scroll horizontally to get to the column.)
- You can click on the column header to reorder the application list, so that the Yes’s and No’s are all grouped together.
And that’s it! If you’ve got a lot of apps that are still 32-bit, no worries. There’s still time to get them updated before Apple phases out support completely. But if you depend on any of them to get through your day, it might not be a bad idea to reach out to the developer and start sweet talking.