Quicken 15 and Mac OS

Question

I having been using Quicken 15 since — you guessed it — 2015.   All that I need it for is to track my checkbook, reconcile it on a monthly basis and print a year-end report of payments for tax purposes.

It appears, however, that Quicken 15 may not be compatible with the next MacOS system — at least that is what the pop-ups imply.

Here is my question:  after I upgrade my iMac to the next operating system, will I still be able to use Quicken 15 or must I upgrade or purchase another product?

jacobs · Answer

@Joseph Pressner The answer above is not really accurate; please read on for a (hopefully) clear explanation.

The issue is that your Quicken Mac 2015 software was written when Macs were powered by Intel processors. Starting in late 2020, Apple started selling Macs with M-series processors developed by Apple instead of the former Intel processors. They built into macOS a piece of software called Rosetta 2, which allowed applications compiled to run on Intel chips to run flawlessly on Macs with M-series processors.

Now, 6 years later, Apple, is closing the door on the Intel era — in two separate steps:

* Yesterday, Apple released macOS 27 ("Golden Gate"), which dropped support for all Intel-based Macs. macOS 27 will only run on Macs with an Apple M-series processor. If you have an Intel-powerd Mac, you can't upgrade to macOS 27.
* Next fall's operating system update, macOS 28, will slam the door closed by eliminating the Rosetta 2 software which allows older software compiled for Intel processors to run on M-series Macs.

You asked: "after I upgrade my iMac to the next operating system, will I still be able to use Quicken 15 or must I upgrade or purchase another product?"

So since you're indicating you plan to update your Mac to the next operating system, macOS 27, it seems like you have a Mac that's from late 2020 or later and has an M-series chip. If not, you wouldn't be able to upgrade to the next operating system at all. If that's correct — that you have an M-series Mac — then you can upgrade to the new macOS 27 which was just released, and your Quicken 2015 application will continue to work using the Rosetta 2 software within macOS.

But this will be the end of the line for Quicken 2015; when next year's macOS 28 comes out, Rosetta 2 is eliminated, and without that, no applications written for Intel processors will run. Of course, nothing will be forcing you to upgrade to macOS 28 next September; you could stay on macOS 27 Golden Gate for several more years, and continue to run Quicken 2015 if you wish.

Eventually, you will want to upgrade to macOS 28 or later, and at that point you will need to either upgrade your Quicken Mac or switch to some other program. Upgrading Quicken is quite easy: you install the current Quicken, tell it to open your Quicken 2015 data file, and it will create a new data file importing all your data and settings. The basic user interface of current Quicken Mac is fundamentally similar to Quicken 2015, although it's been spiffed up and extensively added to over the past decade. The downside is that you can no longer buy Quicken and run it for many years; it's sold as a subscription product, so there's an annual fee. and there's an exception to that. You could buy the current Quicken once and get a one year subscription; when that year's subscription expires, if you don't renew it, you will be able to continue using Quicken manually — e.g. no downloads… but you already don't use downloads. But the caveat is that a an expired subscription will place an obnoxious renewal banner taking up the right 25% of the Quicken window; if you are willing to put up with that — some people are, some people aren't — then you can continue using Quicken indefinitely until the some distant future Apple change breaks it.

Quicken Levetta · Answer

Hi @Joseph Pressner

Thank you for reaching out

Quicken 2015 is no longer supported; we recommend upgrading to the current version of Quicken. We cannot guarantee that Quicken 2015 will work with newer versions of macOS. For more information, please see this article. Other users may be able to chime in with compatibility information.

You can purchase the current version of Quicken directly from the official Quicken website at Quicken.com or by calling Quicken Support.

Your existing Quicken data can be transferred to the newer version so you can continue tracking your checkbook, reconciling your accounts, and printing your year-end reports.

Hope this helps.