Before upgrading to OS X Catalina, find out which apps will be disabled

[klook]

If you're using OS X Mojave or an earlier version, have you been seeing alerts like this one?


Some application developers have created or are working on 64-bit versions of their apps, while others have no plans to go beyond the current 32-bit version -- or plan to charge customers to upgrade to a 64-bit version.

St. Clair Software's free app Go64 will check your system for 32-bit apps, none of which will work with OS X Catalina.

I just ran Go64 on my machine and found that I have 220(!) 32-bit apps installed! Now, many of these are already obsolete or never used, but some are apps I count on daily or weekly, like Adobe Photoshop Elements 16, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5, Adobe Acrobat Professional 8.1, and various Canon apps for my old inkjet printer, for example. Others are apps I don't use often, but really like to have, such as some video editing and conversion apps, utilities and productivity tools, etc.

I really really don't want to go to a subscription model (rent-to-never-own) for the Photoshop apps, for example, but I suppose I'll eventually have to. In the meantime, I think I'll stick with Mojave until I've had time to do more research.

[royable]

1. Unfortunately my iPhone automatically upgraded its iOS and now I can't sync iTunes.

I'd routinely put my own audio recordings into iTunes and sync them to my phone to listen to while I drive or walk. Now I can't, until I upgrade to Catalina. And, like you, a bunch of critical software I need is not available in 64 bit. I curse Apple for not having warned people about the iOS upgrade.

[CloudWatcher]

4. "should" not be the case

Catalina shouldn't be required for iOS 13. Mojave (and the latest iTunes for it), should work.

See https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250624460 for something that might help.

And/or ask Dr. Google for assistance. I suspect you're hitting a bug, it should work.

[dalton99a]

8. IOS 13 is a buggy mess.

Even 13.1.3 - try rearranging icons and folders in the home screen on an iPhone. Their software management people should be fired for this embarrassment

[CloudWatcher]

9. ... and it's gone from iTunes

One review of Catalina that I read noted that the ability to arraign icons/folders on your iPhone from the Mac had disappeared in the general death-blow to iTunes.

The poor slob claimed he had hundreds of apps that he'd purchased and managing them from his phone was just a nightmare.

[nilram]

2. For Photoshop, a friend has a machine that he's never upgrading

and never connecting to the internet. He's been on disability and could never afford their subscription, but is an avid (and darn good) photographer.

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Increasingly, that's the way I work. I've never used many commercial aps, though ...

... so it's kind of easy for me to say. Also, that's at home. At work is another story -- I doubt I'd be allowed to run such old OS's most places.

I have two older Macs running 10.6 and 10.9. As long as the hardware works, I see no need to upgrade the OS. And I suspect by the time they die I'll just drop Mac and work only in Linux.

[CloudWatcher]

3. Finding all your 32-bit applications before converting to Catalina

Fyi you can also find all your 32-bit applications using just built-in software from Apple, using the 'System Report' of About-this-Mac.

1) Launch About This Mac (in the main Apple-Menu)
2) Hit "System Report" to generate a report of your machine
3) Click on "Applications" in the "Software" section of the report
4) Click on the column labled "64-Bit (Intel)"

All of your applications that are 64-bit will be labeled "Yes" and all the ones that are just 32-bit will be labeled "No".

Clicking on an individual program will show where in the filesystem the executable lives. Not all of them will be in /Applications, expect to find some in printer drivers (etc.).

[klook]

6. Thanks - this may work for others, but didn't for me.

The report timed out and I got a message "The plug-in did not respond quickly enough while gathering this information." Tried twice in two different sessions. That may be because I have so many applications installed, or maybe there's some other anomaly with my system.

[CloudWatcher]

7. A couple things to check (if you're interested)

That's odd, it's failed for me once because I'd turned off Spotlight (which it uses to generate the report), but it doesn't sound like that's your problem.

If you're curious, you could try the real application: system_profiler ("About This Mac" runs system_profiler to generate the report).

I'd try (in a Terminal.app shell):

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType

to get a report of all the applications, or just system_profiler for a full report.

E.g. you could

Launch Terminal.app (from Applications/Utilities), and give it the next line (I'm a big fan of copy/paste for long keywords like this):

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType > ~/Desktop/MyApps.txt

And it should generate a report on your Desktop with the name MyApps.txt that includes 32/64-bit status for all your apps.

Or ... running it might produce a more useful error message from system_profiler if it's crashing.