macOS Catalina issues emerging
/Catalina has been out a couple of weeks now and I have been inundated with emails, texts and calls with issues. The issues center around one problem: Catalina does not support all older apps that may be on your Mac before upgrading.
For over a year now, your Mac has warned you about running 32-bit apps and that someday macOS will not support them. Catalina’s introduction was that day.
Macs have been 64-bit for about 13 years now, so software developers have had plenty of time to react to Apple’s shutting down of 32-bit app support. Nevertheless, developers and Mac users have been caught short.
Here is a free app that will let you know what apps on your Mac are 32-bit. Download, install and run the app. https://www.stclairsoft.com/Go64/
Once you find the 32-bit apps you can drag them to the trash if you no longer need them or contact the developer to see if there is a 64-bit version. This upgrade may not be free, depending on the developer.
One very popular and expensive app suite that is 32-bit that will not run on Catalina is Office for Mac 2011.
In addition to 32-bit apps, some older apps just won’t run on Catalina, even if they are 64-bit. Some examples are older versions of Quicken and Quickbooks for Mac and Adobe’s photography apps like Photoshop & Lightroom.
If you have not yet upgraded to Catalina, I highly recommend you do your research on the apps you rely upon before you upgrade.
As always, with all of your computing devices, I highly recommend this 3-step upgrade process:
Restart your device.
Backup your device.
Upgrade.
Do not run any other apps during this process other than what is necessary to do the above steps.