I've been warned that my MacOS Catalina 10 soon would not be supported in downloading online.

Question

My 2012 mac has automatic updates turned on.  Apparently, this is too old to upgrade (not available) to macOS Big Sur (11) or down the road: macOS Monterey.  Do I need to purchase another CPU?

Should I use Time Machine to backup, via an external hardrive?..I have 774.48 GB available of 1 TB.      Thanks, Ted Nishio    [email address removed for privacy]

jacobs · Answer

Never-ending technology upgrades are both beneficial (new features, more secure, faster) and annoying (what I have no works fine for my needs!). And because all the pieces — computer hardware, operating system, software applications — need to be in sync, it's sometimes like dominos where one minor update triggers multiple needed upgrades.

It can seem extremely frustrating that a need to update a single program like Quicken requires a whole new computer. But then when you take a step back and realize the computer actually is rather old, and is increasingly prone to failure or other software not being compatible, you come to the realization that, yes, it's probably time to upgrade the computer, the operating system, and the software to set you up for the present and years ahead. 😉 My rule of thumb is that once you get past 10 years on a computer, it's time to recognize that it has served you well and is a candidate for replacement before too much longer.

Best wishes if you move ahead with replacing your Mac!

Tedsla 3 · Answer

Thank you Jacobs for taking the time to answer my question.  I just received notification in the past from Quicken that downloaded transactions from my financial institutions would, soon, not be possible with my macOS Catalina 10.15.  I checked marked on my mac for automatic upgrades, and it confirmed I had the latest software.  However, after diving deeper, as you stated, this is not true.  So, I sought out what I need to do, in order to have a more current version, short answer: buy a newer computer, my 12 year old computer cannot upgrade any further.

I talked with Apple support and this was confirmed.  If I made an appt at an Apple store, they could transfer the old data, wipe out the hard drive data, and recycle the CPU.

jacobs · Answer

It was announced last November that Quicken Mac version 7.4 was the last release with support for macOS 10.15 (Catalina). I assume you've stayed with version 7.4 since that time? Are you saying that you now get a notice from Quicken that continued downloading will require version 7.5 or above? Or are you referring to some notice from Apple about your mac operating system?

You're running a 12 year-old computer, and you're four operating systems behind the current macOS Sonoma (macOS 14). When you get that far behind, you may be able to keep going a while longer, but you're on borrowed time; you may be able to keep things working, but you'll find increasing compatibility issues, from a program like Quicken to financial websites which will refuse to work with your out-of-date Internet browser(s).

As for backing up, I'm not sure I understand your question. I personally think every Mac user should connect an external hard drive to use for Time Machine backups! Buying a 1 TB hard drive is an inexpensive insurance policy which one hopefully doesn't ned to use, but needs to have if something goes wrong. But I wasn't sure why you were asking about it in relation to getting a new Mac. It is possible to use a Time Machine backup drive to restore to a new Mac, but that's not the best way to move to a new Mac if your old Mac is still working. You'll simple connect the old Mac and new Mac and use another included software tool from Apple, Migration Assistant, to automatically move all your applications and data from the old Mac to the new Mac. Like Time Machine, you launch the software on each Mac and just let it run and do its thing.