On Monday of this week Apple released a new version of the macOS operating system—macOS 12 Monterey. The new OS is generally compatible with Apple hardware made in 2015 and later, with a few exceptions.*

Though ITS expects to test and approve Mac OS 12 Monterey for use on compatible College Macs as early as next month, macOS 11 Big Sur will remain the recommended operating system until sometime in 2022.

ITS strongly recommends that College community members thinking about upgrading personal devices to macOS 12 Monterey also adopt a “wait and see” approach, continuing to use earlier supported versions of macOS until the initial bugs and compatibility issues are identified and fixed.

Apple tends to support their operating systems for three years, and for security and compatibility, the College recommends running one of the two latest releases. If any of your macOS devices are running macOS 10.15 Catalina or earlier, we ask that you upgrade them to macOS 11 Big Sur at this time. College devices running older versions of macOS will be automatically updated to Big Sur starting over winter break.

To upgrade to macOS Big Sur (11.x) on a College-owned computer now, please refer to these instructions:
https://kb.swarthmore.edu/display/SW/macOS+11+Big+Sur



*Monterey is compatible with most Macs made in 2015 or later with a few notable exceptions: Early 2015 iMacs and 2015 MacBooks (not MacBook Pros) are not compatible. 2013 or later Mac Pros, and 2014 and later Mac Minis are also compatible with Monterey.