macOS 12 Monterey compatibility: See if your Mac can run it

macOS 12 Monterey compatibility: See if your Mac can run information technology

(Paradigm credit: Apple)

macOS 12 Monterey is coming very soon — in fact you can already try the macOS 12 Monterey public beta. Fifty-fifty if you lot decide to look for the full release, though, yous'll demand to brand sure that your Mac or MacBook is compatible with this shiny new operating system.

Unlike finding out if a PC runs Windows 11, macOS 12 Monterey compatibility is relatively simple: as long as your macOS device is from a certain generation or later, you should be fine to download, install and run Monterey.

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Apple has listed macOS 12 Monterey organization requirements, but basically you'll need i of these Macs, iMacs or MacBooks to run it:

iMac: Belatedly 2015 and later
Mac Pro: Late 2013 and later
iMac Pro: 2017 and later
Mac mini: Late 2014 and later
MacBook Air: Early on 2015 and later
MacBook: Early 2016 and subsequently
MacBook Pro: Early 2015 and later

Simple, correct? Though as ZDNet notes, this list leaves some older models out in the common cold, even if they currently support macOS Big Sur. If you lot ain one of the following, or anything older, you'll need to upgrade if y'all want to accept advantage of Monterey's new features:

iMac: Mid 2014, Tardily 2014 and Early 2015
MacBook: Early 2015
MacBook Air: Mid 2013 and Early 2014
MacBook Pro: Belatedly 2013 and Mid 2014

One of the biggest additions to macOS 12 Monterey is Universal Control, which lets you utilize a unmarried keyboard and mouse to control any Apple devices — including iPads — that are placed almost to your master macOS reckoner. Given the likely complications in making the huge corporeality of potential hardware combinations all work together, it'south not surprising that Apple is keeping macOS 12 Monterey compatibility to newer models.

Other highlights include a redesigned Safari browser, a port of iOS' popular Shortcuts app and AirPlay to Macs, which should be a practiced match for the latest Apple iMac 2021 and its high-performance speakers.

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James is currently Hardware Editor at Rock Newspaper Shotgun, but earlier that was Audio Editor at Tom's Guide, where he covered headphones, speakers, soundbars and anything else that intentionally makes noise. A PC enthusiast, he also wrote computing and gaming news for TG, ordinarily relating to how hard it is to find graphics card stock.