Proposal Details

Go added support for macOS 15 that was publicly released this September. After internal discussion, we believe the summer of 2025 will be a good time to drop support for macOS 11. The last security update it received was in September 2023.

On behalf of @golang/release, I propose we announce the end of support in the Go 1.24 release notes, and disable the builder for Go 1.25. Go 1.24 (security patches until Feb 2026) will be the last release with macOS 11 support.

For context, https://github.com/golang/go/issues/64207#issuecomment-1843590873 contains some history as well as future patterns if we keep the same cadence.

CC @golang/darwin.

Comment From: gabyhelp

Related Issues and Documentation

(Emoji vote if this was helpful or unhelpful; more detailed feedback welcome in this discussion.)

Comment From: aclements

This proposal has been added to the active column of the proposals project and will now be reviewed at the weekly proposal review meetings.

Comment From: aclements

This seems like a routine deprecation. The number of people using macOS 11 seems to be small.

(It's too bad we don't have telemetry on OS versions. @adonovan is going to file a proposal to gather that.)

Comment From: adonovan

Filed: https://github.com/golang/go/issues/70126

Comment From: aclements

Have all remaining concerns about this proposal been addressed?

The proposal is to announce the end of support for macOS 11 in the Go 1.24 release notes, and disable the builder for Go 1.25. Go 1.24 (security patches until Feb 2026) will be the last release with macOS 11 support.

Comment From: aclements

Based on the discussion above, this proposal seems like a likely accept.

The proposal is to announce the end of support for macOS 11 in the Go 1.24 release notes, and disable the builder for Go 1.25. Go 1.24 (security patches until Feb 2026) will be the last release with macOS 11 support.

Comment From: aclements

No change in consensus, so accepted. 🎉 This issue now tracks the work of implementing the proposal.

The proposal is to announce the end of support for macOS 11 in the Go 1.24 release notes, and disable the builder for Go 1.25. Go 1.24 (security patches until Feb 2026) will be the last release with macOS 11 support.

Comment From: gopherbot

Change https://go.dev/cl/627616 mentions this issue: doc/next: pre-announce dropping macOS 11 support

Comment From: cherrymui

Pre-announcement is added to 1.24 release notes. Move to 1.25.

Comment From: gopherbot

This issue is currently labeled as early-in-cycle for Go 1.25. That time is now, so a friendly reminder to look at it again.

Comment From: gopherbot

Change https://go.dev/cl/646395 mentions this issue: main.star: don't test the main branch on macOS 11

Comment From: gopherbot

Change https://go.dev/cl/663515 mentions this issue: doc/go1.25: document macOS requirements

Comment From: gopherbot

Change https://go.dev/cl/664215 mentions this issue: internal/releasetargets: update list for Go 1.25

Comment From: gopherbot

Change https://go.dev/cl/675095 mentions this issue: cmd/link/internal/ld: use 15.0.0 OS/SDK versions for macOS linking

Comment From: dmitshur

I think we can close this now - I'm not aware of anything more left to do for this for Go 1.25.

If there's anything still in the tree that exists only because of needing to support macOS 11, then there may be some opportunities to simplify/delete code. That's fine to do in future releases too.

Comment From: gopherbot

Change https://go.dev/cl/681136 mentions this issue: internal/dl: update macOS requirement to 12