Check M1 compatibility for all your Mac apps with this free open source tool

Wednesday, November 25, 2020 9:14 AM

We’ve seen some valuable app and game databases recently keeping track of all the software out there that’s optimized for Apple Silicon. Now a free open source app – from developer DigiDNA who makes iMazing – means it’s super easy to check all the apps on your Mac locally for M1 app compatibility.

As we shared before, official Apple Silicon support for apps offers finely tuned efficiency and really impressive performance, but even non-supported apps running through Rosetta 2 translation run really well (which happens automatically after macOS Big Sur prompts you to download Rosetta 2 for the first time). Rosetta translation is so good that M1 Macs can even run x86 instructions faster than Intel Macs in many cases.

But it’s still important and exciting to see official M1 compatibility arrive, particularly for your most important or critical apps.

How to check M1 app compatibility for all of your Mac software

We’ve seen the above resources launch and they’re really useful. But if you want to check your own apps in a more seamless way, iMazing has made a free open source app to check for Apple Silicon M1 Mac compatibility called “Silicon.”

You can find the free download for Silicon on iMazing’s website here (4th app down). And you can check out the source code for the app (and also download it) on GitHub here.