macOS Catalina gives you more of everything you love about Mac. Experience music, TV, and podcasts in three all-new Mac apps. Enjoy your favorite iPad apps now on your Mac. Extend your workspace and expand your creativity with iPad and Apple Pencil. And discover smart new features in the apps you use every day. Now you can take everything you do above and beyond.
Coming Later This Year
iTunes forever changed the way people experienced music, movies, and podcasts. It all changes again with three all-new, dedicated apps — Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts — each designed from the ground up to be the best way to enjoy entertainment on your Mac. And rest assured; everything you had in your iTunes library is still accessible in each app. Syncing happens automatically in the background, and you can still back up your device or change your sync settings by connecting directly to your Mac.
The new Music app is the ultimate music streaming experience on Mac.1 Explore a library of 50 million songs, discover new artists and tracks, find the perfect playlist, or listen to all the music you’ve collected over the years. And find it all in your music library on all your devices.
Bad Times at the El Royale is available on the Apple TV app
The Apple TV app for Mac is the new home for all your favorite movies and — coming soon — Apple TV+. Watch everything directly in the app while you discover the best of what’s on in the Watch Now tab. You can even pick up where you left off on any screen, across all your devices. And for the first time, 4K2 and Dolby Atmos3–supported movies are available on Mac.
The best entertainment, comedy, news, and sports shows are now available on your Mac with Apple Podcasts. Search for podcasts by title, topic, guest, host, and more. Subscribe and be notified as soon as new episodes become available. And in the Listen Now tab, you can easily pick up where you left off across all your devices.
Experience your favorite iPad apps coming soon to Mac. Now developers can easily create Mac apps from the iPad apps you already know and love. They run natively alongside your existing Mac apps so you can drag and drop content between them. And take full advantage of the larger screen and powerful architecture of your Mac to provide a seamless experience across your devices. Enjoy a broad range of Mac apps, with everything from travel, entertainment, and gaming to banking, education, and project management.
Developers are continuing to build for Catalyst as many more of your favorite iPad apps will be coming to Mac.
With macOS Catalina, the apps you love are now more beautiful and intelligent than ever. So your everyday tasks are easier than ever.
Focus on your best shots.
Photos has a new immersive, dynamic look that showcases your photos and memories. See only the best shots in your library, without the duplicates and clutter. Browse your favorite photos by days, months, and years and get larger previews of all your photos. And Photos is even smarter, so it can highlight important moments like birthdays, anniversaries, and trips.
Easier to find. And easier to share.
A new gallery view and more powerful search help you find your notes quicker than ever. Shared folders enable you to collaborate on entire folders of notes with another person or a group. And new checklist options let you move completed items to the bottom, quickly reorder items using drag and drop, and more.
Organization.
Reorganized.
The Reminders app has been completely rebuilt, with an all-new design and new ways to easily create, organize, and keep track of reminders. Add attachments to reminders, create or change reminders with the quick edit buttons, and let Siri suggest new ones found in Messages. Smart lists automatically organize and display your upcoming reminders. And if you tag someone in a reminder, you’ll be notified the next time you’re chatting in Messages.
Start browsing.
Faster.
An updated start page helps you easily and quickly access your favorites and frequently visited sites. And Siri suggestions surface bookmarks, links from your reading list, iCloud Tabs, links you receive in Messages, and more.
Sidecar lets you extend your workspace by using your iPad as a second Mac display. Work in one app while you reference another or view your artwork on your Mac while you use tools and palettes on your iPad. You can also mirror the screens so they both display the same content, making it perfect for sharing exactly what you see with others.
Bring the ease and precision of Apple Pencil to your favorite creative Mac apps with Sidecar.4 Use Apple Pencil to design in Illustrator, edit photos in Affinity Photo, or create 3D models in ZBrush. And the handy sidebar puts essential Command, Control, and Shift keys right at your fingertips.
Use Apple Pencil for everyday tasks like drawing and sketching or marking up screenshots and PDFs. You can easily insert a sketch from your iPad into any document on your Mac.
Discover all the amazing apps that are compatible with Sidecar, including illustration, photography, and 3D apps.
Adobe Illustrator
Affinity Photo
Cinema 4D
Maya
ZBrush
macOS Catalina brings all your favorite Screen Time features to Mac, giving you greater insight into how you’re spending your time. Monitor usage, schedule downtime, and set limits for both apps and websites across all your devices. And with Family Sharing, you can set app and communication limits for your kids to help them focus on the right things.
Communication Limits let you choose who your children can communicate with throughout the day and during Downtime, so you can make sure they’re always reachable.
With Combined Limits it’s easy to combine categories, specific apps, and websites into a single limit. So now you can set a limit for a group of apps and websites, like gaming or entertainment.
Get that extra minute you need when you run out of time. You’ll get a notification when you’ve reached your time limit, so you can quickly wrap up a conversation, save a file, or close a game session before your time runs out.
With macOS Catalina, there are enhanced security features to better protect macOS against tampering, help ensure that the apps you use are safe, and give you greater control over access to your data. And it’s even easier to find your Mac if it’s lost or stolen.
The Apple T2 Security Chip keeps your Mac secure by ensuring that you’re running trusted software and automatically encrypting your stored data. It also provides secure authentication for Touch ID. And macOS Catalina features Activation Lock, so only you can erase and reactivate your Mac.
macOS Catalina runs in its own read-only volume, so it’s separate from all other data on your Mac, and nothing can accidentally overwrite your system files. And Gatekeeper ensures that new apps you install have been checked for known security issues before you run them, so you’re always using good software.
Apps must now get your permission before directly accessing files in your Documents and Desktop folders, iCloud Drive, and external volumes, so you’re always in control of your data. And you’ll be prompted before any app can capture keyboard activity or a photo or video of your screen.
The new Find My app combines Find My iPhone and Find My Friends into a single, easy-to-use app on Mac, iPadOS, and iOS devices. Find My can help you locate a missing Mac — even if it’s offline and sleeping — by sending out Bluetooth signals that can be detected by Apple devices in use nearby. These devices then relay the detected location of your Mac to iCloud so you can locate it in the Find My app.
It’s all anonymous and end-to-end encrypted so no one, including Apple, knows the identity of any reporting device. And because the reporting happens silently using tiny bits of data that piggyback on existing network traffic, there’s no need to worry about your battery life, your data usage, or your privacy.
macOS Catalina includes new features to help everyone get the most out of Mac. Voice Control lets users who don’t use traditional input devices control Mac, iPadOS, and iOS devices entirely with their voice. New tools for users with low vision allow them to zoom a second display or view high-resolution text for items below a cursor.
If you have two screens, you can keep one screen zoomed in close while the other remains at a standard resolution. It’s great for everyday work and giving a presentation.
Hover Text makes it easier to view text on your Mac display. Just hover over any text with your cursor and press Control. You’ll get a dedicated window with large, high-resolution text. You can even choose the fonts and colors.
Help make the next releases of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and tvOS our best yet. As a member of the Apple Beta Software Program, you can take part in shaping Apple software by test-driving prerelease versions and letting us know what you think.
2017 and later
(all models)
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