You can live with a few odd issues if they don't impact your ability to use it properly, but eventually, something big will go wrong and you'll have to decide whether to fix it or upgrade. An old computer is often a lot like an old car. And as discussed above, it doesn't make a lot of sense to pour hundreds of dollars into an old or even obsolete machine when you can get a new one that will last longer.īarring a major hardware catastrophe, a long list of small issues can quickly become a big problem too. In these cases, your computer is unusable until you get it fixed or replace it. Apple generally supports each macOS version for three years.

Taking a look at macOS compatibility (discussed below), we can see that most of the time, Macs are eligible to get the latest macOS version for about seven years. A product is considered obsolete if it was discontinued more than seven years ago. Vintage products are devices that have not been sold for more than five but less than seven years. The definitions from Apple's Vintage and Obsolete products page give an idea of device longevity.

The harder you work your machine, the sooner a component is likely to stop working. Someone who only uses their Mac for occasional web browsing can likely get away with using the same machine for longer than someone who runs their computer all day and does high-intensity tasks like video editing. There isn't an exact number you can put on a Mac's lifespan, as it depends on a variety of factors. Whether you're taking stock of your old machine or thinking about the value of a new purchase, you might wonder how long MacBooks and other Mac models last.

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