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macOS Sierra (version 10.12) is the thirteenth major release of
macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...
(formerly known as and ), Apple Inc.'s desktop and
server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and su ...
operating system for
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
computers. The name "macOS" stems from the intention to uniform the operating system's name with that of iOS, watchOS and tvOS. Sierra is named after the
Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primar ...
mountain range in
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
and
Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...
. Its major new features concern Continuity,
iCloud iCloud is a cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to the cloud, inclu ...
, and windowing, as well as support for
Apple Pay Apple Pay is a mobile payment service by Apple Inc. that allows users to make payments in person, in iOS apps, and on the web. It is supported on these Apple devices: iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. It digitizes and can replace a cred ...
and
Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer qu ...
. The first beta of macOS Sierra was released to developers shortly following the 2016
WWDC The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is usually held at Apple Park in California. The event is usually used to showcase new software and technologies in t ...
keynote on June 13, 2016. The first public-beta release followed on July 7, 2016. It was released to
end user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product, such as sysops, system administrato ...
s on September 20, 2016, as a free upgrade through the
Mac App Store The App Store (also known as the Mac App Store) is a digital distribution platform for macOS apps, often referred to as Mac apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010, at Apple's "Back to the Mac ...
and it was succeeded by
macOS High Sierra macOS High Sierra (version 10.13) is the fourteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. macOS High Sierra was announced at the WWDC 2017 on June 5, 2017 and was released on September 25, 2017 ...
on September 25, 2017.


System requirements

macOS Sierra requires at least 2 GB of
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
and 8 GB of storage space and is designed to run on the following products: *
iMac iMac is a family of all-in-one Mac desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms. In it ...
(Late 2009 or later) * MacBook (Late 2009 or later) *
MacBook Air The MacBook Air is a line of ultrabook computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. It consists of a full-size keyboard, a machined aluminum case, and, in the more modern versions, a thin light structure. The Air was originally position ...
(Late 2010 or later) * MacBook Pro (Mid 2010 or later) *
Mac Mini Mac Mini (stylized as Mac mini) is a small form factor desktop computer developed and marketed by Apple Inc. , it is positioned between the consumer all-in-one iMac and the professional Mac Studio and Mac Pro as one of four current Mac deskto ...
(Mid 2010 or later) *
Mac Pro Mac Pro is a series of workstations and servers for professionals that are designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2006. The Mac Pro, by some performance benchmarks, is the most powerful computer that Apple offers. It is one of ...
(Mid 2010 or later) Sierra dropped support for various Macs released from 2007 to early 2009, the first version of macOS since OS X Mountain Lion, released in 2012, to do so. Support for
Xserve Xserve is a line of rack unit computers designed by Apple Inc. for use as servers. Introduced in 2002, it was Apple's first designated server hardware design since the Apple Network Server in 1996. In the meantime, ordinary Power Macintosh G3 a ...
was also dropped in Sierra.


Workarounds for unsupported systems

Developers have created workarounds to install macOS Sierra on some Mac computers that are no longer officially supported as long as they are packed with a CPU that supports SSE4.1. This requires using a patch to modify the install image.


Changes

The default desktop picture is an image of Lone Pine Peak.


System features


Siri

The user can access the
Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer qu ...
intelligent assistant via the Dock, the menu bar or a keyboard shortcut and results are shown in a
window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent mat ...
in the upper-right corner. Siri can send messages, search the web, find files and adjust settings. Results can be dropped into other applications or pinned to
Notification Center Notification Center is a feature in iOS and macOS that provides an overview of alerts from applications. It displays notifications until the user completes an associated action, rather than requiring instant resolution. Users may choose what a ...
. For instance, pictures from search results can be dragged into a document.


iCloud Drive and Optimized Storage

iCloud Drive iCloud is a cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to the cloud, inclu ...
can upload the user's documents and desktop directories and sync them to other devices. The System Information application has a new section that gives the user detailed information about space usage per application or file and provides tools and suggestions for freeing up space. For instance, the user can let the system upload old files to iCloud Drive and remove their local copies, keeping them available on-demand in Finder. It can also remove old files from
trash Trash may refer to: Garbage * Garbage, unwanted or undesired waste material ** Litter, material discarded in inappropriate places ** Municipal solid waste, unwanted or undesired waste material generated in a municipal environment Arts, enter ...
automatically. iTunes can delete watched, purchased films and
TV programs A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed betw ...
from its library.


Auto Unlock and Universal Clipboard

Building upon Continuity, an "umbrella term orfeatures that facilitate the communication between pple devices using
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
and
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...
, Sierra adds two features. With Auto Unlock, the user can unlock their user account by holding a paired
Apple Watch Apple Watch is a line of smartwatches produced by Apple Inc. It incorporates fitness tracking, health-oriented capabilities, and wireless telecommunication, and integrates with iOS and other Apple products and services. The Apple Watch was rel ...
close to the device.
Time of flight Time of flight (ToF) is the measurement of the time taken by an object, particle or wave (be it acoustic, electromagnetic, etc.) to travel a distance through a medium. This information can then be used to measure velocity or path length, or as a w ...
is used to prevent relay attacks. Auto Unlock requires a Mac that was introduced in 2013 or later. With Universal Clipboard, the user can share the
clipboard A clipboard is a thin, rigid board with a clip at the top for holding paper in place. A clipboard is typically used to support paper with one hand while writing on it with the other, especially when other writing surfaces are not available. Th ...
for cut, copy and paste between macOS Sierra and
iOS 10 iOS 10 is the tenth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 9. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 13, 2016, and was released on September ...
devices, including text and rich content, such as pictures or videos.


Tabs and Picture-in-Picture

Applications that support multiple windows can support multiple tabs within a single window, allowing the user to keep windows organized similarly to Safari. With
Picture-in-Picture Picture-in-picture (PiP) is a feature that can be found in television receivers, personal computers and smartphones, consisting of a video stream playing within an inset window, freeing the rest of the screen for other tasks. For televisions, pic ...
, videos can be played in a window that follows the user across the system.


Apple File System

Apple released a preview of a new file system in Sierra, called
Apple File System Apple File System (APFS) is a proprietary file system developed and deployed by Apple Inc. for macOS Sierra (10.12.4) and later, iOS 10.3 and later, tvOS 10.2 and later, watchOS 3.2 and later, and all versions of iPadOS. It aims to fix c ...
(APFS), to overcome the limitations of HFS Plus. It is intended for
solid-state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a solid-state storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently, typically using flash memory, and functioning as secondary storage in the hierarchy of computer storage. It is a ...
s and flash memory and will adopt several features found in modern file systems, such as
snapshots Snapshot, snapshots or snap shot may refer to: * Snapshot (photography), a photograph taken without preparation Computing * Snapshot (computer storage), the state of a system at a particular point in time * Snapshot (file format) or SNP, a file ...
and cloning, as well as native support for features that Apple already provides in
HFS Plus HFS Plus or HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended or HFS Extended) is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It replaced the Hierarchical File System (HFS) as the primary file system of Apple computers with the 1998 release of Mac OS ...
through supplementary software, such as file-system encryption and
TRIM Trim or TRIM may refer to: Cutting * Cutting or trimming small pieces off something to remove them ** Book trimming, a stage of the publishing process ** Pruning, trimming as a form of pruning often used on trees Decoration * Trim (sewing), or ...
support. The file system was released in macOS High Sierra.


Night Shift

Night Shift is new in macOS 10.12.4, with the same functionality as its iOS counterpart. Night Shift reduces blue light at night to aid sleep. This can be scheduled in the System Preferences app (in the Displays menu) and can be toggled on or off in the Notification Center or using Siri. Since this feature relies on the Metal framework, Night Shift is not available on all systems that support macOS Sierra.


Application features


Photos

Apple says it has improved the face recognition of the Photos application, adding object and scene recognition. It groups similar pictures together using faces, locations and object recognition to create "memories". Memories contain picture slideshows with transitions and music selected by the algorithm, which can be modified to the user's liking. The "People" album organizes photos by the people in them, and Places shows all photos on a world map.


Safari and Apple Pay

Safari provides an "extension point" which enables developers to bundle Safari extensions within their Cocoa applications and communicate with them directly from the applications. Safari conceals the presence of installed "legacy" plug-ins, such as
Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the ...
,
Java applet Java applets were small applications written in the Java programming language, or another programming language that compiles to Java bytecode, and delivered to users in the form of Java bytecode. The user launched the Java applet from a ...
s,
Microsoft Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a discontinued application framework designed for writing and running rich web applications, similar to Adobe's runtime, Adobe Flash. A plugin for Silverlight is still available for a very small number of browsers. W ...
, and QuickTime – from websites and requires the user to enable a specific plug-in on a per-use or per-website basis.
Apple Pay Apple Pay is a mobile payment service by Apple Inc. that allows users to make payments in person, in iOS apps, and on the web. It is supported on these Apple devices: iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. It digitizes and can replace a cred ...
allows vendors to embed an Apple Pay button on their
websites A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wiki ...
. In Safari, users can click the Apple Pay button to check out, then complete a purchase using an iPhone or Apple Watch. Apple Pay requires a Mac that supports Continuity (2012 or later models) and either an iPhone 6 or later with iOS 10, or an Apple Watch with watchOS 3.


Messages

The Messages app adds aesthetic effects to messages, such as three times bigger emojis and click back with hearts or thumbs-up on a message bubble. The ability to play
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
videos and preview links in a conversation was introduced. Users can view interactive content added to
iMessage iMessage is an instant messaging service developed by Apple Inc. and launched in 2011. iMessage functions exclusively on Apple platforms: macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Core features of iMessage, available on all supported platforms, in ...
in iOS 10. The app also allows you to turn on or off read receipts on a conversation by conversation basis.


iTunes

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple M ...
within iTunes has been redesigned, making it simpler to find favorite songs and discover new ones. A new "For You" tab has been added, which suggests new music the user might like (similar to the existing Genius). A refined MiniPlayer with the ability to view
lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a " libretto" and their writer, ...
while listening has also been introduced.


Notes

The
Notes Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versio ...
app allows the user to share and collaborate on notes. This is done by clicking on a share button at the top of the window.


Other changes

*
Disk Utility A disk utility is a 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 and other mount po ...
regains the ability to format and manage
RAID Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...
sets, after it was removed in El Capitan. *Finder has an option to show folders always at the top of the view hierarchy, for instance in list views. *
Mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sys ...
adds a control to the top of
email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
lists to quickly filter them, for instance, by read status or the presence of attachments. *13 & 15-inch Retina MacBook Pros now default to integer scaled over nearest-neighbor scaled resolutions to fit more content.


Other applications found on macOS 10.12 Sierra

*AirPort Utility *
App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the c ...
*Archive Utility *Audio MIDI Setup *Automator *Bluetooth File Exchange * Boot Camp Assistant * Calculator * Calendar *Chess *ColorSync Utility) *Console *
Contacts Contact lenses, or simply contacts, are thin lenses placed directly on the surface of the eyes. Contact lenses are ocular prosthetic devices used by over 150 million people worldwide, and they can be worn to correct vision or for cosmetic ...
* Dictionary * Digital Color Meter *
DVD Player A DVD player is a device that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...
*
FaceTime FaceTime is a proprietary videotelephony product developed by Apple Inc. 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-faci ...
* Font Book *
Game Center Game Center is a service by Apple that allows users to play and challenge friends when playing online multiplayer social gaming network games. Games can now share multiplayer functionality between the Mac and iOS versions of the app. Game C ...
* GarageBand (may not be pre-installed) * Grab *
Grapher Grapher is a computer program bundled with macOS since version 10.4 that is able to create 2D and 3D graphs from simple and complex equations. It includes a variety of samples ranging from differential equations to 3D-rendered Toroids and Lor ...
*
iBooks iBooks may refer to: * iBooks, the former name of Apple Books. * ibooks Inc., a book and comics publishing company founded by Byron Preiss Byron Preiss (April 11, 1953 – July 9, 2005)iMovie (may not be pre-installed) * iTunes *Image Capture *Ink (can only be accessed by connecting a graphics tablet to your Mac) * Keychain Access * Keynote (may not be pre-installed) * Migration Assistant *
Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
(may not be pre-installed) *
Pages Page most commonly refers to: * Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to: Roles * Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation * Page (servant), traditionally a young mal ...
(may not be pre-installed) * Photo Booth *
Preview Preview may refer to: Theatre, film, television * Preview (subscription service), an early subscription television service in the United States * Preview (theatre), a public performance of a theatrical show before the official opening * Previe ...
*
QuickTime Player QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is av ...
* Reminders * Script Editor * Stickies * System Information *
Terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output dev ...
*
TextEdit TextEdit is an open-source word processor and text editor, first featured in NeXT's NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP. It is now distributed with macOS since Apple Inc.'s acquisition of NeXT, and available as a GNUstep application for other Unix-like ope ...
*
Time Machine Time travel is the concept of movement between certain points in time, analogous to movement between different points in space by an object or a person, typically with the use of a hypothetical device known as a time machine. Time travel is a w ...
* VoiceOver Utility * X11/XQuartz (may not be pre-installed)


Security improvements


Gatekeeper

macOS Sierra slightly changes the
Gatekeeper A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate or bouncer, or more abstractly, controls who is granted access to a category or status. Gatekeepers assess who is "in or out", in the classic words of manage ...
user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...
and adds two new mechanisms. A new default in System Preferences hides the "Anywhere" option which allows the user to disable the mechanism and execute programs from any source without needing to approve each new one individually. The first new mechanism allows developers to code-sign
disk image A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is us ...
s that can be verified as a unit by the system. This allows developers to guarantee the integrity of external files that are distributed alongside the application bundle on the same disk image. An attacker could infect these external files with malicious code and with them exploit a vulnerability in the application, without having to break the signature of the application bundle itself. By signing the disk image, the developer can prevent tampering and force an attacker to repackage the files onto a new disk image, requiring a valid developer certificate to pass Gatekeeper without a warning. The second new mechanism is "path randomization", which executes application bundles from a random, hidden path and prevents them from accessing external files relative to their location. To avoid this, the developer has to distribute the application bundle and its external files on a signed disk image or in a signed installer package. The user can avoid this mechanism by moving the application bundle without its external files to a new location.


Directory permissions and sudo

The
Unix permissions Most file systems include attributes of files and directories that control the ability of users to read, change, navigate, and execute the contents of the file system. In some cases, menu options or functions may be made visible or hidden dependin ...
for writing to the/Volumes directory are now restricted to
root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
and no longer "world-writable". Apple expanded System Integrity Protection to , a directory that contains a list of applications that are allowed to "control the computer", and restricts write access to programs which were signed with an Apple "private entitlement". The file-hosting service
Dropbox Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 2007 ...
has been criticized for manipulating the directory to add their Dropbox application to the list, rather than asking the user to do it for them explicitly in System Preferences. The sudo
command-line utility A console application is a computer program designed to be used via a text-only computer interface, such as a text terminal, the command-line interface of some operating systems (Unix, DOS, etc.) or the text-based interface included with most gr ...
with which a user can execute a command as another user, typically as root, is configured with the "tty_tickets" flag by default, restricting the session timeout to the terminal session (such as a window or tab) in which the user authenticated the program.


Removed functionality

Sierra removes support for
garbage collection Waste collection is a part of the process of waste management. It is the transfer of solid waste from the point of use and disposal to the point of treatment or landfill. Waste collection also includes the curbside collection of recyclabl ...
from the
Objective-C Objective-C is a general-purpose, object-oriented programming language that adds Smalltalk-style messaging to the C programming language. Originally developed by Brad Cox and Tom Love in the early 1980s, it was selected by NeXT for its NeXT ...
runtime, a memory-management system that was added in
Mac OS X Leopard Mac OS X Leopard (version 10.5) is the sixth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc., Apple's desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. Leopard was released on October 26, 2007 as the successor of Mac OS X Tig ...
(version 10.5) and declared
deprecated In several fields, especially computing, deprecation is the discouragement of use of some terminology, feature, design, or practice, typically because it has been superseded or is no longer considered efficient or safe, without completely removing ...
in favor of
Automatic Reference Counting Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) is a memory management feature of the Clang compiler providing automatic reference counting for the Objective-C and Swift programming languages. At compile time, it inserts into the object code messages retain a ...
in OS X Mountain Lion (version 10.8). Applications that have been compiled with garbage collection will no longer run. Apple removed native support for the
VPN A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...
protocol
PPTP The Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) is an obsolete method for implementing virtual private networks. PPTP has many well known security issues. PPTP uses a TCP control channel and a Generic Routing Encapsulation tunnel to encapsulate PP ...
and made recommendations for alternatives that it considers more secure. The "time remaining" estimate has been removed in the 10.12.2 update after complaints of the battery life of 2016 MacBook Pros. The
Game Center Game Center is a service by Apple that allows users to play and challenge friends when playing online multiplayer social gaming network games. Games can now share multiplayer functionality between the Mac and iOS versions of the app. Game C ...
app has been removed. However, the service still exists.


Reinstallation

Following the download of macOS Sierra (10.12) from the
Mac App Store The App Store (also known as the Mac App Store) is a digital distribution platform for macOS apps, often referred to as Mac apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010, at Apple's "Back to the Mac ...
, the installer does not show under a users' "Purchased" tab in the Mac App Store app. Users can still re-download the Sierra installer by visiting the macOS Sierra page on the Mac App Store.


Reception

macOS Sierra has received generally positive reviews. Users and critics have praised its functionality, including the addition of Siri and support for Apple Pay in Safari. Macworld gave it 4.5 stars out of 5.
Engadget ''Engadget'' ( ) is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. ''Engadget'' manages ten blogs four of which are written in English and six have international versions with independent editor ...
gave it a rating of 87 out of 100 praising the new features such as
Siri Siri ( ) is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS, and audioOS operating systems. It uses voice queries, gesture based control, focus-tracking and a natural-language user interface to answer qu ...
integration, Universal Clipboard, and Apple Pay while criticizing the unreliability of Auto Unlock, that "Siri isn't always smart enough" and some of the Messages features are only available on iOS 10. Developers of apps that rely on the PDFKit library built into macOS have complained that radical changes to PDFKit introduced in Sierra are causing instability and potential data corruption.


Release history


Timeline of Macintosh operating systems


References


External links

* – official site
macOS Sierra
download page at
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...
{{Apple Inc. 12 X86-64 operating systems 2016 software Computer-related introductions in 2016