With macOS 27, there’s no longer support for Intel-based Macs, though Apple will continue to serve up security updates for them for three years. But a new app may help ease the pain.
“Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Apple silicon easier, and we plan to make it available for the next two major macOS releases – through macOS 27 – as a general-purpose tool for Intel apps to help developers complete the migration of their apps,” Apple says in a support document. “Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks.”
Ast-Ware Arts has announced the launch of Rosetta Radar for Mac, a free utility that scans any Mac and shows exactly which applications will stop working when Apple removes Rosetta 2.
Apple is winding down support for Rosetta 2, the translation layer that lets Intel-based apps run on Apple Silicon Macs. Rosetta 2 doesn’t ship with macOS 27 but still works with it — and it will be removed entirely from macOS 28. When that happens, every Intel-only app on your Mac will simply stop opening.
Apple’s own built-in tools can show you which apps are Intel-based — but that’s all they do. They don’t tell you what the app actually does, and they don’t link you to the developer so you can get an updated version. You’re left with a cryptic list and no roadmap.
Rosetta Radar fills that gap.
Rosetta Radar inspects every application on your Mac — combining the macOS app list with a Spotlight sweep, and optionally scanning external volumes — and sorts each app by architecture: Intel-only, Universal, Apple Silicon, 32-bit, or other. Then, according to developer Mark Astman, it goes beyond Apple’s tools:
° Instant Plain-Language Descriptions: A built-in library recognizes roughly 6,000 common Mac apps entirely offline (sourced from the Homebrew Cask project, BSD-2-Clause; see the included Third-Party Notices), so most apps are described and linked without any internet lookup.
° A Source column showing the signing developer when known — Apple, Mac App Store, a named company, or Unidentified.
° Actionable Insights & Direct Links: Underlined app names link directly to the developer’s website so you can immediately check for an updated version.
° A clean HTML report and a CSV spreadsheet, saved to your Desktop each run — create both, or just the one you want.
° Helpful sorting and filtering — click any column heading to sort, filter by developer name, and even copy an app’s folder path with a single click.
° 100% Free & Private: Completely free to use and share. It requires no registration and does not even ask for your email address. It runs fully offline by default, ensuring your data stays on your Mac.
“Everything runs fully offline by default — no network connections, nothing sent anywhere,” Astman said. “An optional online lookup (off by default) can fill in descriptions for apps outside the built-in library, and results are cached locally.”
Rosetta Radar for Mac is available here.
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Hmm, that domain has only just been registered and my work filter is blocking it. Do we know much about ast-warearts?
Hi Craig,
My name is Mark Astmann, and I’m the developer of Rosetta Radar.
Yes, the domain is brand new. I purchased it and launched the site yesterday, so there isn’t a lot of information there yet. I completely understand why that might raise a question, particularly when you’re being asked to download and run software from a developer you don’t already know.
I’m retired now, but I spent many years as a product development manager, bringing commercial and industrial software products to market. My role involved writing software specifications, defining how products should work, and overseeing the programmers who built them. I’m not a programmer by trade, but I have considerable experience developing software products and working with development teams.
I used that experience to write the specifications and design for Rosetta Radar and then used AI-assisted development to turn that design into the application.
I also wanted the project to be as transparent as possible. **Rosetta Radar is open source**, so anyone with the appropriate technical skills can inspect the code themselves. On a Mac, you can right-click Rosetta Radar, select **Show Package Contents**, open the **Contents** folder, then the **MacOS** folder. The RosettaRadar executable can then be opened in a text editor for inspection.
Privacy was also an important consideration when I designed the application. **Rosetta Radar operates locally on your Mac and does not routinely send information anywhere.** The only time it goes online is when you specifically ask it to look up information about an application it doesn’t recognize.
When you request that lookup, Rosetta Radar sends only the **name of the application it is trying to identify**. It first checks Apple’s App Store and then Wikipedia for information about that application. No personal information, files, Mac data, or other information is sent to those sites.
I understand that downloading software from a brand-new developer requires a degree of trust. That’s why I’ve tried to make Rosetta Radar as transparent as possible, both by making the source code available and by keeping its normal operation entirely local.
I hope that helps explain who I am, how Rosetta Radar came about, and how it handles your information.
Best,
Mark Astmann
Ast-Ware Arts