In case you were not aware, MacOS 27 Golden Gate will be the last version of MacOS to offer Rosetta support. Rosetta is a translation tool from Apple that allows Mac computers with Apple Silicon chips to run older Intel applications. It runs seamlessly in the background anytime an Intel app is launched, and works pretty much flawlessly, offering modern MacOS support for many older Intel-based apps. If you’re using an Apple Silicon Mac, you might have already installed Rosetta at some point in time to use an Intel-based app.
Essentially this means that if you depend on Rosetta to run some critical apps, you’ll either want to stay put with MacOS 27 Golden Gate moving forward, or find alternative apps, or get updates to those apps for Apple Silicon whenever possible.
Unfortunately not all Intel-based apps have Apple Silicon versions or support, and so this means some Mac users will be left in a challenging situation in time.
How to Prepare for the End of Rosetta on Mac: Check Your Intel Apps
To prepare for this inevitable change, you might want to check which of your Mac apps are Intel and start preparing accordingly. You can get a list of all Intel apps on your Mac by doing the following:
- Hold down the Option key and then click on the APPLE menu
- Choose “System Information” (which, when holding down OPTION key, replaces ‘About this Mac’)
- Select “Applications” from the sidebar
- Sort your applications by “Kind” and locate any apps that say “Intel”
This will be your list of Mac apps that are potentially impacted by this coming change.
I personally have a lot of Rosetta apps still, particularly little handy utilities, and a decent number of games, including Minecraft, Warcraft 3, Starcraft 2, Civilization 5, and Civilization 6 – will those games be updated by their developers to be fully Apple Silicon? Some likely will be updated, others will likely not, and it’s ultimately hard to know, but it would be a shame to lose some great games or essential apps just because Rosetta is no longer supported in future MacOS 28 and later releases.
And again, to be clear, MacOS 27 Golden Gate is not impacted by this change and continues to have Rosetta support for running Intel apps on Apple Silicon Macs, but MacOS 28 and beyond will no longer support Rosetta and Intel apps.
If you’re curious, read more from Apple here about the usage of Intel-based apps and Rosetta being sunset.
Do you have a lot of Intel-based apps that rely on Rosetta? What’s your plan to handle the transition away from Rosetta in future MacOS 28 and later versions?
