Upgrading from High Sierra to Catalina

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Level 1

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Upgrading from High Sierra to Catalina

I always accepted upgrades on my iMac and assumed this included OS versions. But I now realise that it got stuck at the top of High Sierra and it did not upgrade the OS automatically, first to Mojave then Catalina. I have two questions:

Does one always have to initiate an OS upgrade oneself or did I miss something?
If I upgrade now, I understand I can go direct to Catalina because the device is compatible. However there are warnings that one will lose any "32 bit applications". What is that? How might I check if I have any? And is there something I should do to protect them. Are there any other issues with the Catalnia upgrade I should know about before proceeding?

Many thanks in advance!

Posted on Sep 22, 2020 6:11 PM

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Answer 1

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FoxFifth

Level 10

472,203 points

Sep 22, 2020 6:34 PM in response to Edith25

See the "How to find 32-bit apps on your Mac" section of 32-bit app compatibility with macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 and later - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Edith25 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 22, 2020 6:27 PM in response to Edith25

By the way, I have already checked the advice on upgrade notices and I can confirm that I had already long ago ticked the System Prefs box for "Download newly available updates in the background" so I don't understand why there were no prompts to upgrade the OS. It could be useful to know why for future reference. But the main issue now is how to upgrade to Catalina safely, without losing anything important.

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Answer 3

Edith25 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 22, 2020 6:57 PM in response to FoxFifth

Many thanks, I stumbled on this earlier and checked the list, the more recent examples all seem to be from Adobe Acrobat which is weird.

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Upgrading from High Sierra to Catalina

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