macOS Ventura (version 13) is the nineteenth
major release of
macOS
macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
,
Apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
's
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
for
Macintosh
Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
computers. The successor to
macOS Monterey, it was announced at
WWDC 2022 on June 6, 2022, and launched on October 24, 2022. macOS Ventura was succeeded by
macOS Sonoma
macOS Sonoma (version 14) is the twentieth Software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc., Apple's operating system for Mac (computer), Mac computers. The successor to macOS Ventura, it was announced at WWDC 2023 on June 5, 2023, and ...
, which was released on September 26, 2023.
It is named after the
city of Ventura and is the tenth macOS release to bear a name from the company's home state of
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. The macOS 13 Ventura logo, official graphics and default wallpaper resemble an abstract
California poppy.
macOS Ventura is the last version of macOS supporting Macs released in 2017, including the 21.5-inch 2017
iMac and the
12-inch MacBook, with the exception of the
iMac Pro, which is supported by releases up to
macOS Sequoia
macOS Sequoia (version 15) is the twenty-first and current major release of Apple Inc., Apple's macOS operating system, the successor to macOS Sonoma. It was announced at Worldwide Developers Conference#2024, WWDC 2024 on June 10, 2024. In li ...
.
History
New features
macOS Ventura includes changes, many related to productivity, and adds two apps from
iOS and
iPadOS: Weather and Clock.
Freeform was added in an update to all three operating systems.
New system features
* Stage Manager, which provides an alternative interface for multitasking, in addition to the previous
Mission Control.
New apps
*
Weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...
: shows detailed weather forecasts.
Clicking on the Weather widget now opens this app, not
The Weather Channel
The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are located in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel ...
's website.
*
Clock
A clock or chronometer is a device that measures and displays time. The clock is one of the oldest Invention, human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, a ...
: displays world time and manages alarms, stopwatches, and timers.
Clicking on the Clock widget now opens this app, not the Date & Time section of
System Preferences.
*
Freeform, a whiteboard app that supports real-time collaboration (added in version 13.1).
Changes
*
Mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
adds "send later" and "undo send" options and includes improvements to search, email organization, and formatting.
*
Spotlight produces richer search results; with Live Text, it can return pictures that contain the queried text.
*
Safari
A safari (; originally ) is an overland journey to observe wildlife, wild animals, especially in East Africa. The so-called big five game, "Big Five" game animals of Africa – lion, African leopard, leopard, rhinoceros, African elephant, elep ...
adds Shared Tab Groups and
Passkeys, uses
WebAuthn for password-less account management, gets a redesigned sidebar, and gains
AVIF support.
*
Messages now allows the user to edit and unsend recent
iMessages, similar to
iOS 16
iOS 16 is the iOS version history, sixteenth major release of Apple Inc., Apple's iOS mobile operating system for the iPhone. It is the successor of iOS 15, and was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, 202 ...
and
iPadOS 16.
*
FaceTime
FaceTime is a proprietary videotelephony product developed by Apple. FaceTime is available on supported iOS mobile devices running iOS 4 and later and Mac computers that run and later. FaceTime supports any iOS device with a forward-facin ...
gets Handoff, the ability to transfer a call between multiple Apple devices.
* Continuity Camera, a feature that allows a user's
iPhone
The iPhone is a line of smartphones developed and marketed by Apple that run iOS, the company's own mobile operating system. The first-generation iPhone was announced by then–Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, at ...
to wirelessly serve as a
front-facing camera, with support for Desk View on some iPhones.
* System Preferences is renamed to System Settings and gets a brand new
tabbed interface and re-organized panes based on the iOS/iPadOS
Settings app.
** Because of this, the app-specific "Preferences..." menu bar item has been renamed "Settings..." for all apps.
*
Photos app:
iCloud
iCloud is the personal cloud service of Apple Inc. Launched on October 12, 2011, iCloud enables users to store and Data synchronization, sync data across devices, including Apple Mail, Calendar (Apple), Apple Calendar, Photos (Apple), Apple Ph ...
Shared Photo Library allows multiple members of iCloud
Family Sharing to add, edit, and delete photos in the same photo library.
* The
Game Center dashboard is redesigned.
*
Font Book gets a new visual design.
*
Maps adds support for routes with multiple stops.
*
Siri
Siri ( , backronym: Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) is a digital assistant purchased, developed, and popularized by Apple Inc., which is included in the iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, Apple TV, audioOS, and visionOS operating sys ...
gets redesigned to match its appearance since
iOS 14 and
iPadOS 14
iPadOS 14 is the second major release of the iPadOS operating system developed by Apple for their iPad line of tablet computers. It was announced on June 22, 2020 at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) as the successor to ...
.
*
Apple Music
Apple Music is an audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users can select music to stream to their device on-demand, or listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the sister internet radio stations Apple Musi ...
adds the ability for the user to mark artists as "favorites" and receive new music notifications from those artists.
* Print dialogs have been redesigned.
Many users report that Print Presets no longer save all essential printer features (paper type, duplexing, color mode, print quality, etc.) requiring settings to be manually selected with every print job.
* Ability to play ambient background sounds as an accessibility feature in System Settings.
* New backgrounds and screensavers.
* A bug was fixed in
Disk Utility
A disk utility is a utility software, utility program that allows a user to perform various functions on a computer disk, such as disk partitioning and logical volume management, as well as multiple smaller tasks such as changing drive letters an ...
concerning the verification of
Time Machine backup volumes.
* Improved game controller support.
* Apple's Virtualization framework: better support for multitouch gestures in macOS Ventura
VMs, support for graphics acceleration, folder sharing, and Rosetta 2 in Linux VMs.
*
Metal
A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...
3, with support for spatial and temporal image upscaling.
* Live Text now works in videos.
* About This Mac tab was updated. It now shows an image of the device you are using and shows less information, it also gives you an option to go to
System Settings to see more info about your Mac.
* iCloud
** Advanced Data Protection: optional end-to-end encryption for all
iCloud
iCloud is the personal cloud service of Apple Inc. Launched on October 12, 2011, iCloud enables users to store and Data synchronization, sync data across devices, including Apple Mail, Calendar (Apple), Apple Calendar, Photos (Apple), Apple Ph ...
data except emails, calendars and contacts.
** Support for
physical security keys
*Security
** Rapid Security Response, a new update mechanism to rapidly patch security vulnerabilities without having to install a full system update; according to Apple, these patches will not require a reboot.
** New Login Items section in System Settings (in the General pane), which shows all programs that start on boot (including all LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons for both the user and the system). In previous versions of macOS, the Login Items list in the "Users & Groups" pane only showed programs that registered themselves to be displayed, and most malware would not have been listed.
** Confirmation before allowing data connections with USB-C accessories, to prevent malicious USB-C chargers from installing malware.
** Gatekeeper now checks the notarization of third-party apps every time they are launched.
** Lockdown Mode, which prevents USB devices from connecting when the Mac is asleep, blocks the installation of MDM profiles, limits the risk of malicious attachments in the
Messages app,
and removes just-in-time compilation for JavaScript in Safari.
** Built-in apps cannot be moved from the cryptographically verified Signed System Volume to another location where they could be tampered with.
Removed features
*The
Preview app on Mac no longer supports
PostScript
PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...
(.ps) and
Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) files. Printing of such files, to a printer natively supporting PostScript, remains possible by accessing the Printer Queue from System Settings and dragging the file into the queue window.
*
Network Utility has been removed.
* The Network Locations feature was removed from the graphical user interface. It can still be accessed from the command line.
* Help files related to dial-up modems have been removed.
* Schedule Shutdown, Restart and Boot have been removed from the graphical user interface. They can still be accessed from the command line.
Known problems
*
Unicode
Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...
Hex Input does not work if the
code point
A code point, codepoint or code position is a particular position in a Table (database), table, where the position has been assigned a meaning. The table may be one dimensional (a column), two dimensional (like cells in a spreadsheet), three dime ...
four‑digit number is 0xx0 (first and last digits in the number are zero). This issue was resolved in Ventura 13.3.
* Ventura 13.5 introduced a bug in which user-installed apps are not appearing under the 'Location Services' section in the 'Privacy and Security' settings. Due to this, users are unable to modify location permissions or view the list of applications installed by them that have access to their location information. This issue was resolved in Ventura 13.5.1.
Supported hardware
macOS Ventura is the last release for Macs with
Apple T1 Security chip. macOS Ventura officially supports Macs with
Apple silicon
Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...
and Intel's
Skylake-based Xeon-W and 7th-generation
Kaby Lake chips or later, and drops support for Macs released from 2015 to 2016, officially marking the end of support for the Retina MacBook Pro, 2015-2017 MacBook Air, 2014 Mac Mini, 2015 iMac and cylindrical Mac Pro. The 2016 MacBook Pro is also dropped, however, the operating system can be installed and run using OpenCore because all required drivers for T1 system are present (drivers are removed in macOS Sonoma). The 21.5 inch 2017 iMac is the only supported standard configuration model to have no Retina display.
Macs that support macOS Ventura are as follows.
*
iMac (2017 or later)
*
iMac Pro (2017)
*
MacBook (2017)
*
MacBook Air (2018 or later)
*
MacBook Pro (2017 or later)
*
Mac Mini
Mac Mini (stylized as Mac mini) is a small form factor (desktop and motherboard), small form factor desktop computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is one of the company's four current Mac (computer), Mac desktop computers, positioned ...
(2018 or later)
*
Mac Pro (2019 or later)
*
Mac Studio
The Mac Studio is a small form factor (desktop and motherboard), small-form-factor workstation computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is one of four desktop computers in the Mac (computer), Mac lineup, sitting above the consumer-range M ...
(all models)
AirPlay to Mac, always-on "Hey Siri", 4K HDR streaming, and Spatial Audio are not supported on all models. Offline dictation, Live Captions, Portrait Mode in FaceTime, and "Reference mode" (which allows users to use an iPad as a secondary
reference monitor) only work on Apple silicon Macs.
Unofficial support on older models (discontinued hardware)
By using patch tools, macOS Ventura can be unofficially installed on earlier models that are officially unsupported, such as a 2017 MacBook Air and a 2015 MacBook Pro. Using these methods, it is possible to install macOS Ventura on models as early as a 2008 MacBook Pro or a 2007 iMac (after a
Penryn CPU upgrade).
Release history
The first developer beta of macOS 13 Ventura was released on June 6, 2022.
Apple maintains Ventura release notes: fo
consumers fo
enterprise fo
developers as well as
security updatepage.
Timeline of Mac operating systems
References
External links
* – official site
{{Apple software
2022 software
ARM operating systems
18
X86-64 operating systems