Still Have an Intel Mac? It’s Time to Make the Move to Apple Silicon

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On August 13, 2026

Holding on with a death grip to your old pre-Apple silicon Mac? Maybe it’s nostalgia, or a reluctance to switch from Intel’s familiar architecture. Or maybe it’s simple frugality. (Who wants to buy a new Mac at today’s prices?) If you were looking for a sign that the end of Apple/Intel road is nigh, though, this is it. Apple’s macOS 26 Tahoe is the final release of Apple’s operating system to support Intel processors; its successor, macOS 27 Golden Gate, will be incompatible with all Intel-processor Macs. After macOS 27 launches in September 2026, it’s strictly Apple silicon from here on out.

With Apple’s M-series chips now in their fifth generation and delivering fantastic performance, the company has clarified its future focus. So, if you’re still holding on to that Intel-based Mac, how long do you really have until it’s time to switch?

I’ve been testing and reviewing Macs since the Intel days, so I know where Apple’s computers have been and have a solid idea of where they’re heading. While I can’t give a definitive answer for every specific machine and situation, I’ve identified some waypoints on your journey, problems that will likely arise, and opportunities to move to a new system.

The Biggest News: macOS 27 Is the End for Intel on Macs

Nearly a year ago, Apple Mac users got access to macOS 26 Tahoe, which continued Intel Mac support for some select models. That version of the OS introduced Apple’s new transparent Liquid Glass visuals for menu bars and buttons, more integrated Apple Intelligence capabilities in Shortcuts and Spotlight search, and Metal 4 graphics. The latter brings frame generation (similar to Nvidia’s DLSS), real-time ray tracing, and path tracing to M-series Macs.

(Credit: Apple)

For users of Intel-based Macs, this was the last gasp; macOS 26 is compatible with four late Intel Mac models, all from 2019 and 2020…

While these specific models got macOS 26 Tahoe, several other Intel Macs released in the same time period did not: Intel-based MacBook Airs, the 15-inch MacBook Pro, entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pros with only two Thunderbolt ports, and 2019 iMac models. Older models with Intel 8th-Gen hardware had already hit the cutoff for receiving new macOS versions. With the upcoming release of macOS 27 Golden Gate, even those grandfathered products in the bulleted list above will lose support.

The first Apple silicon chip, the Apple M1, debuted in late 2020, and Apple phased out Intel chips from every Mac and MacBook line over the next year or two. And if you’re still rocking a 2017 MacBook, for example, you will not be able to download the latest macOS.

Top-Rated Apple Silicon Laptops and Desktops

What Will Take Down Your Old Mac First?

Whether it’s a nine-year-old iMac Pro or a 40-year-old Amiga you’ve kept running in a back room as a hobby project, you’ll encounter some common problems that any aging computer is prone to. With Apple officially dropping software support for the final Intel-based systems, these legacy machines have entered unsupported, vintage territory.

(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)

Some cutoffs are unavoidable, such as the end of warranty coverage and customer tech support. Others are less predictable, such as guessing which component might fail first. While preventive care can stave off some issues, you can only accept others. You’ll also discover problems unique to specific Apple models that can severely limit their (extra) long-term viability.

Sure, you can keep an older system hobbling along using unofficial workarounds, such as OpenCore Legacy Patcher, to try and stretch compatibility for dropped models. However, running community-patched software on unsupported architecture is a hobbyist workaround, not a reliable option for a daily driver. If you’ve been relying on an Intel Mac for your daily work, it’s time to retire it and upgrade to Apple silicon.

No More Apple Help: The End of Warranty and Tech Support

The first usability windows that will close are a computer’s initial warranty period and the end of Apple customer support service. Generally speaking, Apple provides a one-year warranty on any new product, with the option to extend coverage up to three years with AppleCare+. You can check your device’s warranty status on Apple’s website using the serial number.

Apple classifies older products as “Vintage” or “Obsolete.” Five years after the last sale, a model gets categorized as Vintage, which means you can still get hardware repairs at Apple Stores and authorized service providers, but only if the specific repair parts are available—and five years is when Apple stops making new parts, so you’re relying on dwindling inventory.

(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)

Macs that are seven years past the last sale are classified as Obsolete, meaning they aren’t eligible for hardware service at all. (The one exception here is battery replacement, which can extend up to 10 years, provided Apple still has new batteries warehoused.)

It’s important to recognize that the Vintage/Obsolete status only addresses the eligibility for hardware repairs. There’s also the issue of major OS updates. A Mac will stop receiving security updates around the five- or six-year mark, and macOS updates much sooner. As of macOS 27, which arrives in September 2026, the last Intel Macs will lose that support.

That small subset of Intel systems running macOS 26 Tahoe will continue to receive basic security patches through September of 2028. However, systems stuck on macOS 14 Sonoma or an older macOS version will already be at or past the official patch support window, leaving them vulnerable to unpatched security exploits.

macOS and More: Software and Feature Drop-Off

The growing divide between Apple’s latest features and those supported by your older machine is arguably more important than its calendar age. Since the introduction of Apple silicon, we’ve seen six macOS releases, and the seventh (macOS Golden Gate) is on the way. Versions that were new when the M1 was fresh are no longer supported: macOS 11 (Big Sur) and macOS 12 (Monterey) have stopped receiving updates, and newer releases like macOS 13 (Ventura) and macOS 14 (Sonoma) are already on life support.

(Credit: PCMag)

With every iteration of its products, Apple introduces new software, new device integrations, and improved capabilities. If you’re still using an Intel Mac, you’re already losing out on current features. To begin with, your aged Mac won’t work as closely with your iPhone, and your iPad won’t work as smoothly with your MacBook. Plus, your Apple Watch may not be able to do every cool trick that it’s capable of. If you’re heavily invested in Apple’s ecosystem, Intel Macs show their age even more than they might for casual Apple users.

Even if your Intel Mac supports macOS 26 Tahoe, it is completely excluded from all Apple intelligence features, such as local LLM summaries, smart spotlight actions, and the foundation model framework, which all rely strictly on Apple silicon neural processing hardware and unified memory architectures. As a result, no Intel Mac has received these capabilities, because they depend on more recent functionality introduced with Apple’s own silicon.

You also see gaps in graphics support and for general ecosystem elements, such as Metal 4. Also absent? Enhancements such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing, path tracing, and frame generation, as well as spatial audio and video processing, which you would enjoy on newer Apple silicon Macs.

Apple Security Updates: Insecurity Through Antiquity

While you can get macOS updates for two or three years after buying a new Mac, security updates keep coming for a bit longer—one to two years after Apple stops sending full operating system updates. Even then, the security updates aren’t as frequent or as timely as they are for newer models, so your four-year-old MacBook Pro isn’t as secure as a new model, despite still receiving security patches.

(Credit: PCMag)

Laptops older than eight or nine years won’t receive continued security patches. At a certain point, your retro machine will become an ever-growing security hole that hackers can drive right through. That may be fine if you’re keeping a vintage collector’s piece out of nostalgia, but if it’s still your daily driver, the four-to-five-year time frame is a smart time to upgrade.

Redefining Your Apple Space: Storage and Clutter

As new MacBooks and Mac desktops come with roomier storage (in faster, more reliable formats), the hard drives or solid-state drives in Macs from just a few years ago will start to feel progressively smaller. At a certain point, you’ll feel cramped by a drive that’s filled to the brim with your files and apps, leaving your Mac feeling like an overstuffed closet, where you have trouble finding items inside and have no room for anything new.

However, it’s not simply a problem of newer models having more storage. As drives get larger and faster, storage needs grow in parallel because of what’s now made possible. Today’s developers enjoy the freedom to build larger apps, while users work with larger files—4K video takes far more storage space than a 720p clip. And new software tends to be a storage hog. That’s fine if you have 1TB of headroom, but if you’re limited to the 256GB drive that came standard on your 2016 15-inch MacBook Pro, you’ll feel the pinch pretty quickly.

Finally, older drives not only have less room to store your stuff, but they also fill up with accumulated updates, program files, and the digital detritus that comes with operating a computer year after year. Sure, you have ways to free up space on your Mac, but doing so won’t make your old drive any larger or faster.

Things Fall Apart: Hardware Failure

The final nail in most older Macs’ coffins is hardware that has reached the end of its life. While you might be able to keep an older MacBook Pro or MacBook Air chugging along for years, you should be aware of several potential points of failure that can end that streak.

Reliability engineers graph component failures over a product’s life, creating a bathtub curve. Product defects are most likely to appear in the first weeks and months of use, leading to high failure rates at the start of the product’s life cycle. Then things settle down for a while, usually giving you years of trouble-free service. But then comes the other end of the graph—the curve ramps back up, with hardware failures ending the life of even the most reliable laptop or desktop.

(Credit: PCMag)

If you haven’t faced it yet, it’s not a matter of if your Mac will break down, but a question of when. While basic components are replaceable piecemeal, outdated hardware faces a wide range of distinct failure points. In laptops, swollen lithium-ion batteries can trap gas inside, expanding to the point where they crack the trackpad or warp the aluminum casing. Everyday mechanical wear also degrades the flexible cables connecting laptop displays to the body of the machine, eventually causing them to crack or sever, leaving you with a dead screen. Even simple internal wiring succumbs to age; in older non-Retina unibody MacBook Pros, the internal hard drive SATA cable frequently frays and fails, leaving you stuck at startup with a flashing folder icon.

On the mainboard, thermal breakdown and aging power systems affect both desktops and laptops. Over time, factory thermal paste dries up, and fans become clogged with dust, leading to severe heat buildup. This results in performance-choking thermal throttling, at best, and permanent logic board damage in cases of extreme heat. Inside older iMacs, that trapped heat can actually cause graphics chips to desolder or fail, leading to boot crashes, horizontal lines across the screen, and other GPU artifacting.

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Meanwhile, older mechanical hard drives and Fusion drives reach the end of their physical lifespan, leading to slow performance, intermittent data loss, or total drive failure. And power-supply capacitors inside desktop Macs can degrade over time, eventually preventing the computer from turning on at all.

Eventually, something will burn out, crack, or just quit, proving much harder to replace. Aside from the general, inescapable march of time, certain Macs have a few specific issues you’ll need to watch out for.

The Infamous Butterfly Keyboard

Sadly, I’m not referring to the famous expanding “butterfly” keyboard of 1995’s IBM ThinkPad 701C. Remember the 2015 Apple MacBook? It was not a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro; it was just called MacBook—a 12-inch ultraportable that debuted an extra-slim keyboard that matched the rest of the design. Unfortunately, the keyboard’s new butterfly-switch design was a real dud. Even worse, it eventually made its way to the MacBook Air and Pro models, which was a shame.

The shallow keyboard was simply not up to snuff: It was not overly comfortable to type on, and it was prone to failures if dirt or debris got under the keys. (They tended to stick down instead of popping back up.) Faced with irate customers and a class-action lawsuit, Apple ditched the butterfly design and even offered free repairs. If you’re using any model of MacBook from the 2015 to 2018 era, you’re likely typing on borrowed time. At the very least, keep that keyboard clean.

Suspect SSDs and Fusion Failures

Crank out a few million laptops, and you’re bound to occasionally have some hitches. In Apple’s case, solid-state drives have sometimes been an Achilles’ heel.

Some of the 64GB and 128GB drives used in the 2012 and 2013 MacBook Air laptops proved to be faulty, prompting the company to offer free replacements. Between 2017 and 2018, the 13-inch MacBook Pro had another problem-prone batch of drives. So, if you have one of these aged models, you’ve likely run into this particular wall by now.

Beyond that, between 2012 and 2019, some Intel iMacs and Mac minis used a hybrid storage system that Apple called Fusion Drive. It combined a speedy SSD with a cheaper but more capacious platter-based hard drive. It was a clever solution to the high cost and low capacities of SSDs at the time. Today, it means you have a drive that’s twice as likely to conk out at any time because it has two points of failure.

Fusion Drives combined the drives using a RAID alternative called CoreStorage, which actually shuttled programs and files back and forth between the hard drive and SSD to optimize performance. The problem is that if one drive falters, it takes the other down with it.

Delaminated and Cracking Displays

The 2012 MacBook Pro elicited oohs and ahs for its dazzling Retina Display. But for the next five years, MacBooks’ high-resolution panels were, at times, plagued by anti-glare coatings that could decay before their time was up. Even mild bumps or jolts could cause the anti-glare coatings to delaminate, separating into layers in a way that pretty much spoiled the screen. Even newer M1-based MacBooks have run into screen issues, with M1 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models suffering from unexplained cracks in the display panels. If you’re looking at an older, out-of-warranty Intel MacBook with this problem, you’re likely best off looking at a new model, full stop.

(Credit: PCMag)

Touchy Touch Bars

If you have a 2016 or later MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar above the keyboard (which Apple kept around until 2023), you might run into problems caused by an internal cable. The Touch Bar of an older Mac is another problem just waiting to happen.

Love Your Old Mac, But Don’t Wait Too Long to Upgrade

The overarching message should be clear: In 2026, your old Intel Mac is on borrowed time. I’ve listed plenty of reasons to upgrade to one of Apple’s newer models, whether it’s the comfort of manufacturer-approved repairs, the usefulness of new features, the security of frequent updates, or just the reliability of the hardware that makes it all work. Our roundup of the best Apple MacBooks is a fine place to get a reality check and price out what the new Apple silicon models look like if you’re on the cusp of upgrading.

Also, bear in mind that if you’re rocking a 10-year-old MacBook, upgrading to a late-model Mac that’s not cutting-edge is another option. So, instead of shelling out more for the latest 2025 M5 Apple MacBook Pro 14-Inch or a 2026 M5 Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch, you might find a nice deal on the earlier M4 Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch. And if you really want to save, you have the newest (and most affordable) member of the MacBook family, the Apple MacBook Neo, which is several hundred dollars less than the next new Mac, and our favorite cheap laptop overall.

If you love your old Intel Mac too much to part with it, at least be sure you’re regularly backing up your files, keeping your system clean, and steering clear of bad habits that might shorten your machine’s lifespan. Also, remember that when you do upgrade to something new, you don’t have to throw out your beloved Mac—you can save it as a vintage piece of tech or breathe new life into it with a DIY project.

Still Have an Intel Mac? It’s Time to Make the Move to Apple Silicon

The Biggest News: macOS 27 Is the End for Intel on Macs

Top-Rated Apple Silicon Laptops and Desktops

What Will Take Down Your Old Mac First?

No More Apple Help: The End of Warranty and Tech Support

macOS and More: Software and Feature Drop-Off

Apple Security Updates: Insecurity Through Antiquity

Redefining Your Apple Space: Storage and Clutter