Update 2013 iMac with Catalina to support later OS.

[kerry7]

Can a iMac from 2013 with 8GB running Catalina 10.15.7 be upgraded (memory to 16GB) to run a later OS? I can’t update my browsers (safari, Firefox, chrome) and many sites won’t support the older versions of the browsers.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The answer is maybe.

Click on the Apple icon the top left and choose "About this Mac" and either share the details or the screenshot. We need to know the specifics about the iMac.

For example, back in the day 21.5" iMacs were not upgradable while the 27" iMacs were. Later on, with the Intel->Apple Silicon switch, things were only configurable at purchase, not upgradable post.

 

[kerry7]

The answer is maybe.

Click on the Apple icon the top left and choose "About this Mac" and either share the details or the screenshot. We need to know the specifics about the iMac.

For example, back in the day 21.5" iMacs were not upgradable while the 27" iMacs were. Later on, with the Intel->Apple Silicon switch, things were only configurable at purchase, not upgradable post.

iMac 21.5” late 2013; 2.7 GH quad core intel i5; 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3; graphics Intel Iris Pro 1535MB
has Catalina 10.15.7

 

[MacBiter]

Can a iMac from 2013 with 8GB running Catalina 10.15.7 be upgraded (memory to 16GB) to run a later OS? I can’t update my browsers (safari, Firefox, chrome) and many sites won’t support the older versions of the browsers.

Three possibilities:

1. Use Open Core Legacy Patcher to upgrade your OS to something much more recent, e.g. from Big Sur onwards

2. Use VMWare (now free for personal users) to create a VM within Catalina that can have a much later OS installed within it - you will certainly need to upgrade to at least 16GB RAM to do this as you'll be running two OSs side by side.

3. The easiest: download the most recent Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release) that works in Catalina, which will open pretty much all sites.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Here are the specs of that machine:

iMac "Core i5" 2.7 21.5" (Late 2013) Specs (Late 2013, ME086LL/A, iMac14,1, A1418, 2638): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the iMac "Core i5" 2.7 21.5" (Late 2013). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.

everymac.com

This vintage of iMac doesn't have accessible memory banks. However, if the upgrade can happen if you want to follow the instructions in this video.

All in all, you've gotten nearly 12 years of usage out of the machine, so you might want to think hard about upgrading to a newer machine. The newer Apple Silicon based Macs are superior performers compared to the Intel versions.

If you don't want to do that, you can follow the steps above to kinda get updated.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Can a iMac from 2013 with 8GB running Catalina 10.15.7 be upgraded (memory to 16GB) to run a later OS? I can’t update my browsers (safari, Firefox, chrome) and many sites won’t support the older versions of the browsers.

The easiest and cheapest (free) solution is to run the version of the Brave browser for Catalina and later, which is version 1.69x:

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/releases/download/v1.69.168/Brave-Browser-universal.dmg

 

[kerry7]

Thanks for the Brave suggestion. It worked on a few of the sites I tried.
In the meantime will need to decide on whether to get a new or used iMac or perhaps try upgrading the memory and OS although I suspect the older hardware approach will be short lived.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Thanks for the Brave suggestion. It worked on a few of the sites I tried.
In the meantime will need to decide on whether to get a new or used iMac or perhaps try upgrading the memory and OS although I suspect the older hardware approach will be short lived.

I suspect that your browser problem has now mostly been solved, and that the version of Brave that you are using will be modern enough for at least another year or so.

In your original post, you didn't mention having any other problems, or any problems specifically related to not having enough RAM installed. Unless you have recently started doing something new, like movie editing, or 3D modeling, I don't suspect that adding more RAM will do much for you at all. I also don't think that throwing money at a Mac that's almost 10 years old is a good use of funds.

In addition, I don't think that moving to a newer version of the Mac OS is going to do much for you, unless you have new apps that you want to run that won't run under Catalina.

If your Mac is starting to run slow (by that, I mean slower than when it was new), you may want to look at some of the suggestions here:

Macintosh Slowdown Solutions
http://www.macattorney.com/sd.html

Otherwise I think that your Mac is reaching the comfortable outer limit of its lifespan. It's time to consider either getting a newer used or refurbished Mac, or a brand new Mac. You don't have to rush to do so, but the longer you wait, the more things will pop up that you have to put up with until you do.

 

[MacBiter]

In your original post, you didn't mention having any other problems, or any problems specifically related to not having enough RAM installed. Unless you have recently started doing something new, like movie editing, or 3D modeling, I don't suspect that adding more RAM will do much for you at all. I also don't think that throwing money at a Mac that's almost 10 years old is a good use of funds.

In addition, I don't think that moving to a newer version of the Mac OS is going to do much for you, unless you have new apps that you want to run that won't run under Catalina.

----------

Otherwise I think that your Mac is reaching the comfortable outer limit of its lifespan. It's time to consider either getting a newer used or refurbished Mac, or a brand new Mac. You don't have to rush to do so, but the longer you wait, the more things will pop up that you have to put up with until you do.

I'm just a little bit wary of this - a few years ago I found that upgrading my 2011 iMac from 8GB RAM to 16GB, made a big difference and that's running Mavericks. I would say that Catalina would benefit even more?

My own bottom line is that if my Mac runs my existing software perfectly well, there's no particular urgent need to get another. HOWEVER... that said, the problem is always finding a browser that will run in an older OS. This is clearly widely recognised as an issue, which is why Chromium Legacy and Firefox Dynasty have been developed, and is also why Mozilla continue to issue ESR (extended support release) versions of Firefox for older OS's (Firefox 115 ESR for High Sierra and Mojave will be supported until March 2025 but will obviously continue to work for a good while after then).

Beyond that, there is always OCLP which can be used to install Sequoia or earlier on Macs as old as 2009 .

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I'm just a little bit wary of this - a few years ago I found that upgrading my 2011 iMac from 8GB RAM to 16GB, made a big difference and that's running Mavericks.

If one's Mac ran great when new on X amount of RAM, and a number of years later it's running slow, and you aren't using any new applications that are particularly RAM hungry, then upgrading your RAM isn't the solution to fix your performance degradation. It MIGHT give you a speed bump if it is masking some other problem that is effecting performance, but in that case you are throwing money at a problem that is likely easy to fix for free. I have an entire Web page devoted to dealing with that:

Macintosh Slowdown Solutions
http://www.macattorney.com/sd.html

I would say that Catalina would benefit even more?

You're assuming that newer versions of the Mac OS are more RAM hungry than older versions. That is likely true for each new version of Windows, but it's fallacious for the Macintosh. With each new version of the Mac OS, for quite a long time now, Apple has improved the efficiency with which the Mac uses RAM. They've implemented very smart RAM utilization and things like memory compression.

It that long ago that Apple released some Macbooks that only came with 8GB of RAM, with no other options. Folks whined that that wasn't enough and that users would have big problems. They didn't. Apple knew what they were doing.

 

[MacBiter]

If one's Mac ran great when new on X amount of RAM, and a number of years later it's running slow, and you aren't using any new applications that are particularly RAM hungry, then upgrading your RAM isn't the solution to fix your performance degradation. It MIGHT give you a speed bump if it is masking some other problem that is effecting performance, but in that case you are throwing money at a problem that is likely easy to fix for free. I have an entire Web page devoted to dealing with that:

I'm not saying my Mac was very slow with 8GB then became superfast with 16GB - but it did mean that I could comfortably run FileMaker Pro, Photoshop, a browser, some utilities and minor apps, concurrently without experiencing irritating lag or delays. However, what I SHOULD have mentioned is that I've been a VM user for years, and running 2 OS's at once really does need 16GB (I generally allocate 6GB to the VM as I run far fewer applications in them, which leaves 10GB minimum for the host).

As for saying that 'Apple knows best' - hollow laugh! I'm sure you've noticed that M1 - M3 Macs came with 8GB RAM, but with M4 it's now 16GB minimum.

.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I'm not saying my Mac was very slow with 8GB then became superfast with 16GB - but it did mean that I could comfortably run FileMaker Pro, Photoshop, a browser, some utilities and minor apps, concurrently without experiencing irritating lag or delays. However, what I SHOULD have mentioned is that I've been a VM user for years, and running 2 OS's at once really does need 16GB (I generally allocate 6GB to the VM as I run far fewer applications in them, which leaves 10GB minimum for the host).

Yes, that's the reason why it might be a good idea to increase one's RAM. That is, if you are using RAM hungry applications and/or you need to have all of them open at the same time.

This is not the OP's situation though. She just wanted to know if she needed to increase her RAM to run a newer version of the Mac OS. She doesn't.

As for saying that 'Apple knows best' - hollow laugh! I'm sure you've noticed that M1 - M3 Macs came with 8GB RAM, but with M4 it's now 16GB minimum.

The new M4-based Macs are designed to run Apple Intelligence. Apple is going to be rolling out more and more AI apps as part of Sequoia. These AI apps are RAM hungry. That's why Apple increased the minimum RAM that all new Macs offer. It's not an admission that older Macs needed more RAM. Once again, Apple knows what they are doing. See:

Opinion: Is the base MacBook Air M1/8GB powerful enough for you?
Is the base MacBook Air M1/8GB powerful enough for you? - 9to5Mac

8GB vs 16GB M1 MacBook Pro - How much RAM do you NEED?!

Apple insists 8GB unified memory equals 16GB regular RAM
Apple insists 8GB unified memory equals 16GB regular RAM

Apple Silicon Unified Memory: How Much Mac RAM Do You Need?
Guides on MacRumors (outdated link removed)

 

[MacBiter]

8GB vs 16GB M1 MacBook Pro - How much RAM do you NEED?!

That guy started with Geekbench / Cinebench tests - that's not relevant to the amount of RAM! They're processor tests. And his video editing comparisons were on export times, which wouldn't show much difference in 4k tests, (another YouTube comparison of M1 with Intel showed similar export times, though the actual video formatting showed a huge difference), but there was a massive difference with 8k export.
.

Apple insists 8GB unified memory equals 16GB regular RAM
Apple insists 8GB unified memory equals 16GB regular RAM

Yes, that concludes that for your average 'light' user, 8GB is enough - but for video editing for example you do see an advantage with 16GB. And I notice that the Apple guy quoted used the word 'probably'!, where other experts have shown that the difference is not actually double but definitely much better than the Intel equivalent.

Apple Silicon Unified Memory: How Much Mac RAM Do You Need?
Guides on MacRumors (outdated link removed)

I'm getting an error for that link?

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Yes, that concludes that for your average 'light' user, 8GB is enough - but for video editing for example you do see an advantage with 16GB.

I believe that YOU added the term "light". But, yes, video editing is a heavily RAM intensive activity. If one is going to be doing a lot of video editing, then they should have more than the minimum amount of RAM. I believe that folks who do a lot of video editing know that. Though I don't suspect that there are a lot of people who do a lot of video editing, and they certainly aren't your average user.

Likewise, if a user is going to be working with any sort of really huge files they will need more than the minimum amount of RAM. 3D rendering, working with really huge databases, Photoshop with a bunch of plug-ins, etc. Those are all things that professionals do. They know who they are and they probably want a more top-of-the-line computer than an average user.

Your average user is fine with the minimum amount of RAM, though. You'll note that in the first test that I linked to that the tester threw as much as he could at the M1-based Mac with only 8GB of RAM, and it responded like a champ.