How far can I upgrade 2013 iMac currently running Mojave?

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How far can I upgrade 2013 iMac currently running Mojave?

So I've resisted upgrading the OS on my Mac's for far too long now. The short reason is having used Mac's in my business for over 25 years I retired and the iMac I saved still has Adobe Creative suite and Microsoft Office. (which I paid a ton of money for over the years with all the upgrades). I really, HATE paying for subscriptions as this is only for hobbies, a bit of photo retouching the odd flyer, etc. It's got to the point that lots of websites are becoming unusable in Safari, even switching to Chrome is causing issues.

So I need to bite the bullet and switched my Photoshop to Affinity and just use Google Docs for my spreadsheets and Word.

What's the latest operating system I could run on this iMac?

27" late 2013, currently running 10.14.6

3.2 GHz Intel Core i5

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M 1GB

1 TB hard drive

I'd rather not invest in a new model at the moment, but I guess it's going to be inevitable at some point!

iMac 27″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Feb 12, 2025 8:26 AM

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Answer 1

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Servant of Cats

Level 7

34,175 points

Feb 12, 2025 9:21 AM in response to Chris Hoskins

The latest operating system you can run on that Mac is Catalina. Catalina is not one of the "most recent three" – it fell off that list in October 2022, when Apple released Ventura. So it's not supported by vendors like Microsoft and Adobe.

It is good enough to let you run current versions of Firefox, LibreOffice, and the commercial Affinity V2 applications. However, it breaks 32-bit applications.

I would not count on old one-time-purchase versions of the Adobe Creative Suite continuing to work under Catalina. If I am not mistaken,

All of them have 32-bit installation and activation code that won't work under Catalina.
For CS2, CS3, CS4, and CS5, Adobe has shut off the DRM activation servers. Adobe's DRM has broken the ability to do clean re-installations of those versions - even on old Macs running old versions of macOS.
Even if you upgrade from Mojave to Catalina in place, there could be other incompatibilities for which there won't be a fix, given that Adobe no longer supports any one-time-purchase version of the Creative Suite.

If you still want to install Catalina, here's how to get it:

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Feb 12, 2025 1:56 PM in response to Chris Hoskins

you have enough RAM and disk space to run a Virtual Machine in which you could install - e.g. - High Sierra to run alongside Catalina, into which you would move the apps that won't run in 10.15.

your choices are Virtual Box (free), VMWare (now free for personal use), or Parallels (now has a g**awful subscription model).

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Answer 3

Feb 12, 2025 9:33 AM in response to Servant of Cats

Thanks, I was not expecting to be able to continue using Photoshop (the main reason I hadn’t previously made the upgrade)

I’ve ordered a new portable hard drive and I’ll do a Time Machine back up before I attempt anything.

Once I’ve upgraded the OS if it’s not a big improvement then I can revert and continue to use Adobe for the odd Photoshop and look at buying a new machine for all the newer applications.

Just need enough desk space!

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Answer 4

Feb 19, 2025 1:37 AM in response to christopher rigby1

Thanks for the advice but in the end I bought a new iMac (and kept the old one for now for legacy stuff), I'm sure Mr Apple is happy even if my credit card isn't

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How far can I upgrade 2013 iMac currently running Mojave?

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