Rosetta Is Retiring — Here's What Mac Admins Need to Know

At the MacAdmins Conference at PSU last month, I presented a session on one of the most impressive technology transitions Apple has made, that has likely been quiet in your fleet until now: the end of Rosetta 2. If you manage Macs, read on for the short version.

Rosetta's clock is ticking, and Apple has been unusually clear about the dates. macOS 26 is the last release with full Intel support. Rosetta itself is sticking around for one more year as a compatibility tool through macOS 27… but macOS 28 in Fall 2027 won't run Intel apps at all. Older Intel-based Macs will continue to get security updates for three more years.

Apple is already warning you, and your users. Starting with macOS 26.4, users started to receive a notification whenever they launched an app that depends on Rosetta. If that sounds familiar… it should. Because it's the same playbook Apple used for the 32-bit app transition several years ago. This model for deprecation is documentation warnings first, then user-facing notifications, then real (but brief) friction, followed by removal.

The good news: finding what depends on Rosetta isn't impossible. Between system_profiler, mdls, lipo, osquery, and brew there are several ways to inventory Intel-only software across a fleet. And you can adapt these commands into scripts suitable for your environment and needs. I walked through all of them in the session, but they're also listed below to help you get started. But, beyond just apps you do want to also pay particular attention to things that may be less-obvious: audio and video plugins, Spotlight importers, Quick Look generators, and other extensions. Because of how these work, they will fail silently instead of throwing an error by default.

One thing to watch for: If you're currently suppressing Rosetta Usage Awareness notifications to keep support tickets down, it's worth reconsidering this decision. These notifications are actually an incredibly useful signal for finding what still needs attention before it's too late.

Finding Intel-only Apps#

Use system_profiler#

/usr/sbin/system_profiler -json SPLegacySoftwareDataType

Use Spotlight (mdls & mdfind)#

mdls -name kMDItemExecutableArchitectures ‘/Applications/Workbrew.app'

mdfind 'kMDItemExecutableArchitectures == "x86_64" &&  kMDItemExecutableArchitectures != "arm64" && kMDItemContentType == "com.apple.application-bundle"'

Use lipo#

lipo -archs “/Applications/Workbrew.app/Contents/MacOS/Workbrew”

Use osquery#

SELECT pid, name, path FROM processes WHERE translated = 1;

Use brew#

brew info --installed --cask --json=v2 | jq '[.casks[] | select(.caveats_rosetta).full_token]'

For More Advanced Testing…#

• Test disabling Rosetta: sudo nvram boot-args="nox86exec=1" (this will force any process that calls Rosetta to crash)
• Test a specific package: arch -x86_64 /usr/sbin/installer -pkg <input.pkg> -target / (testing packages is essential, as you may have a dependency failing silently)
• Test games on macOS 27: sudo game-test-tool enable (new in macOS 27)
• Direct users to their list of apps: open “x-apple.systempreferences:com.apple.SystemProfiler.AboutExtension?showIncompatibleApps" (new in macOS 27)

For the full session recap, more details, the slides, and the video head to my full write-up: magicthatworks.net/rosetta