Apple has done a splendid job of hiding this level of complexity from the user, so if your system works then you’re good! Oh, and don’t forget, I have lots of Snow Leopard help here on the site too. That’s right, even in 64-bit mode, you’ll find that much of your system is running in 32-bit mode anyway.Īh well, now you know. One final thing to show you: If you do boot into 64-bit mode, go back into Activity Monitor and you’ll see a funny thing: The key is near the bottom: “Open in 32-bit Mode”. A 32-bit program that can’t run in 64-bit mode will look like this:īy contrast, a 64-bit friendly app shows this: You can also tell if individual apps are 64-bit capable by using the good ole’ “Get Info” command. There’s not much you’ll see different when you’re running this way, but if you navigate to the same area in “System Profiler”, you’ll now see this: Now, try rebooting and forcing 64-bit mode by holding down the “6” and the “4” key during boot. See that line “64 bit Kernel and Extensions”? The value “no” means that you’re not running in 64-bit mode. Click on “Software” and if you’re running in 32-bit mode, you’ll see this:
This will launch “System Profiler” and if you look down the left side you’ll see the major categories of “Hardware”, “Network” and “Software”.
#Is macbook 32 or 64 bit how to
How to See if Your Mac’s Processor is 32-bit or 64-bit. This doesn’t show you whether you’re running in 32-bit or 64-bit mode, though, so to ascertain that you have to go through a slightly different hop… click on the “Apple” menu and choose “About This Mac” then click on the “More Info…” button. macOS has been 64-bit and 32-bit since 2005, and generally speaking if you purchased a new Mac in 2007 or later, its processor is 64-bit. Hmmm… I expect that to change fairly soon! But if you look closely, you’ll see that iTunes is also still a 32-bit application. Third party apps, like Adobe Air (which runs Seesmic Desktop) and Microsoft Entourage run as 32-bit applications, no surprise there.
As you can see, some programs run in 64-bit mode, while others run in 32-bit mode, approximately 50/50 on my computer. Launch it and you’ll see something like this: One example that’ll be critical for our needs is the Activity Monitor, which you can find in “Applications” –> “Utilities”. In a lot of ways, I think that the 64-bit capability of the operating system is there for future growth of the platform, not because your iMac or PowerBook can handle it (or needs it, for that matter).įor an operating system that Apple has said is all about fixes and tweaks, there’s actually rather a lot of new stuff that shows up, and a lot of code has been rewritten and enhanced without much fanfare.
#Is macbook 32 or 64 bit mac os x
Before we go further, realize that the majority - if not the vast majority - of people running Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard are running in 32-bit mode.