macOS 27 Golden Gate Kills Time Capsule Support

[Ja50n]

How am I supposed to do local backups now?

Edit: I re-read the headline, guessing this doesn't affect Time Machine backups, but just one TM device called "Time Capsule"?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

If Apple made routers again I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Such a shame I missed out on Time Capsule.

You can get them for Pennies at your local thrift store

 

[sjjones]

Not in the same way they do for iPhone and iPad. Most of the important things can be sent to the cloud if you set it up but there is no one click full backup other than Time Machine which needs to be on a drive some place. It could be offsite if you have a cloud provider but no full iCloud backup option. Not that I am aware of.

You can backup your macOS Photos through iCloud Photos. And macOS Documents and Settings quite easily with iCloud Drive.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

How am I supposed to do local backups now?

Are you serious?
Time Machine.

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

How am I supposed to do local backups now?

Edit: I re-read the headline, guessing this doesn't affect Time Machine backups, but just one TM device called "Time Capsule"?

Yes. The Time Machine software is not impacted

 

[boswald]

That was a very solid product from Apple. Maybe they will bring back in Dark Cherry? That alone would be a huge innovation.

I'd buy that for a dollar!

 

[badtzmaru]

i love my time capsules! so sad to see Apple abandon them...

 

[Markovich]

I couldn't either until I could.

LMAO- sure ok

 

[Markovich]

I would say thats true. The average home owner is not going to dive into the detail that is needed to setup a full UniFi system. It's easier to manage than more enterprise based systems and its advantage is the lack of additional license fees but its not an out of the box solution. With average IT skills though, it's possible to be successful with the setup. I really like mine.

I found the accompanying Unifi app was terribly design and barely functional. The support was non existent. No kidding, Ubiquity support put me on hold 3 times and hung up on me each time, then they stopped replying to emails etc. The entire experience was terribly unprofessional and burned me enough to never ever consider them again, for anything.

 

[Happy_John]

I found the accompanying Unifi app was terribly design and barely functional. The support was non existent. No kidding, Ubiquity support put me on hold 3 times and hung up on me each time, then they stopped replying to emails etc. The entire experience was terribly unprofessional and burned me enough to never ever consider them again, for anything.

It sounds like you have been very unlucky. These systems have been rock soldi and very much "set up once and forget" in any implementation I've used them in.

 

[needsomecoffee]

And the Airport utility is no longer available in the utilities folder. This sucks big time.

Can one copy the Tahoe version into GGate to continue using it?? I have used the utility for many, many years, and am not aware of any (or many) changes over that time. Since we are very happy with an array of Airports/Expresses thruout the house we use the utility solely for managing our network. (Our only demand for WiFi is that it be reliably there so Airports are great for us.) Thx. NSC

 

[Happy_John]

You can backup your macOS Photos through iCloud Photos. And macOS Documents and Settings quite easily with iCloud Drive.

iCloud ( Photos and Documents and Desktop, etc) is a syncing solution - it is NOT a backup solution.

iCloud will only sync the current data on your phone. If you delete a file from your phone, it will also be removed from your iCloud.

In other words, iCloud can only be a valid backup if you NEVER delete any photos and files from your devices.

You can copy files into your iCloud storage ( not quite the same as iCloud sync, but uses the same storage allocation ) but you have to do this manually, and then there is still only a copy in the iCloud storage, so to is also not a backup.

To have a robust backup solution, you need an incremental backup solution, preferably mirrored to two different devices / servers.

 

[Happy_John]

How am I supposed to do local backups now?

Edit: I re-read the headline, guessing this doesn't affect Time Machine backups, but just one TM device called "Time Capsule"?

It affects all models in the AirPort Time Capsule and AirPort Express ranges. That's about 10 or 11 devices.

 

[Happy_John]

You can get them for Pennies at your local thrift store

They're going to get a hell of a lot cheaper from September on eBay etc. - there's still a hell of a lot of them in daily use, and those won't be replaced until people upgrade their machines to macOS27 and then receive a message saying it is not longer supported.

 

[Le Big Mac]

How am I supposed to do local backups now?

Edit: I re-read the headline, guessing this doesn't affect Time Machine backups, but just one TM device called "Time Capsule"?

Correct - Time Machine on a drive connected via USB will continue to work. But that's not a great solution either for households with more htan one mac or the high % of users on a laptop who would prefer not to have to connect a drive whenever they sit down and would like to do it wirelessly anywhere in their house.

 

[Le Big Mac]

I would say thats true. The average home owner is not going to dive into the detail that is needed to setup a full UniFi system. It's easier to manage than more enterprise based systems and its advantage is the lack of additional license fees but its not an out of the box solution. With average IT skills though, it's possible to be successful with the setup. I really like mine.

I'm happy with my Unifi wireless network, but definitely takes more learning to set up than an Airport/Time Capsule (just for Wifi). Yes, that's the cost of having a larger feature set. It's certainly more "pro-sumer" than most Apple products.

 

[Frantisekj]

And can be TC with SMB3 faster then AFP?

 

[Happy_John]

I'm happy with my Unifi wireless network, but definitely takes more learning to set up than an Airport/Time Capsule (just for Wifi). Yes, that's the cost of having a larger feature set. It's certainly more "pro-sumer" than most Apple products.

Yep. People not comfortable. with configuration etc would need a "helping hand" with the initial setup. Once set up, though, it shouldn't be a problem.

An "Airport Utility" style app for Mac users would help - that's where the Time Capsules were great for many users.

 

[Happy_John]

And can be TC with SMB3 faster then AFP?

That's doubtful. The hardware inside a TC wasn't particularly fast at the time of release, and it's not going to get any faster.

Not a huge problem for automated backups running in the background ( although the initial backup will take a LOOONG time ), but they're slow when used as remote storage, compared to current standards.

If speed of file transfers is an issue for you, and you're comfortable with DIY, an affordable alternative (far cheaper than a new 2 bay NAS) would be to pick up a 2012 or 2104 Mac mini, put in two 2Tb drives and use that as a TM destination / file server. It will be significantly faster, as long as it is connected via ethernet to your router.

 

[whitby]

Nice solution offered for a Samba based interface solution. I like that, but it does mean you will loose all existing backups on the Time Capsule. However I still have a few of them and I might try this out as an experiment.

Aside from this, I am surprised that Apple decided to opt out of the local wifi network market as they are well placed to provide nice tidy plug and play solutions. I use EERO after trying Unifi, since I found it easier to maintain (I am a retired software and computer systems engineer and I could not be bothered with the upkeep and cost of the Unifi solution) and it works well enough for my home network. EERO are probably the nearest to an Apple like solution, so I think that this may be the sort of reason Apple decided to focus on their main area of expertise (despite the fact that they must have a lot of wireless experts in the iPhone development team).

Anyway still sad to see the support drifting away for this old Apple product, but we must move on.

 

[dominiongamma]

It's so frustrating to me that Apple hasn't remained in the router and Time Capsule space.

Why isn't there an Apple router/Home Hub/Time Capsule solution on offer in 2026?

Because iCloud exist now, as much I don’t iCloud since it’s all subscription and making money now. Wish we had an updated version of time capsule

 

[theluggage]

Correct - Time Machine on a drive connected via USB will continue to work.

So will Time Machine to any of the many third party NAS boxes that support Time Machine (...which is fairly common because it's built into the open source Samba SMB server software that many third parties use).

 

[Happy_John]

So will Time Machine to any of the many third party NAS boxes that support Time Machine (...which is fairly common because it's built into the open source Samba SMB server software that many third parties use).

Yep, but some NASes work more reliably than others. Before buying, it's always worth doing a Google search on people's experiences with TM on the particular brand / model being considered.

 

[rymc02]

It's so frustrating to me that Apple hasn't remained in the router and Time Capsule space.

Why isn't there an Apple router/Home Hub/Time Capsule solution on offer in 2026?

It the rumors are true and Apple is developing more home products like cameras and such, a home hub mesh router running Apple silicon would make a lot sense. It would allow these devices including HomePods to use the hub for SiriAI requests. It could potentially add more compute power to any Apple device on network, reducing the amount that Siri requests go to the cloud. If they let you connect additional storage you could have a home backup of iCloud as well as Time Machine for all your devices at home. I know that last statement is a long shot but maybe without Cook trying to get every penny from us, it's a possibility. It could smartly manage software updates for all devices. It would be a really cool device.

 

[norbinhouston]

Airport still works great if your home is mostly Apple. It’s not a true mesh system but it works great like it’s a real one. The software was so easy to use too. I tried Orbi and eero and it’s not as seamless as the old Airport system. It just works. I’m afraid now that Apple disabled Airport software on MacOS, it’ll be the end. I understand the time capsule part, but not the WiFi part.