How long does preparing to ship take?

Here's how it went for me. I know when trying to research the same topic as you this is the sort of answer I was looking for.

I ordered a 27-inch iMac with a memory upgrade. The whole process took 13 days for me. I'm sure there are lots of things that can make an order take longer, but this is how it went for me.

Order Placed: July 22nd

Processing: July 23rd

Card Charged: July 25th

Preparing to Ship: July 28th

Shipped: July 29th

Delivered: August 4th

I know plenty of people are searching for answers and stumbling across this thread (like myself) so I wanted to give as much info as I can to help you out.

Ordered: July 31

Card Charged: August 7

Preparing to Ship: August 10

Shipped: August 11

-Arrived in ZhengZhou China on the 12th and stayed for 2 days.

-Arrived in Korea on the 14th

-From here it’s expected to go to Alaska, Memphis, then to me. Estimated delivery August 19th.

Based on other comments/stories/reddit posts I would say you can definitely expect the process after it ships to take at least 7 days. Longer if there’s issues with customs/bad weather/or you’re in a highly impacted Covid area.

As someone who is out of work until their laptop arrives (HP envy crashed after 5 years), I completely understand how insane it feels to spend so much money and have to wait so long.

Also- in case anyone was wondering:

I ordered a MBA 8gb ram, 1tb storage, i5 processor (for work).

Today’s the day- my laptop will be in my hands in two hours! So for everyone else who patiently/impatiently has been waiting for what feels like forever to get their EXPENSIVE laptop, here’s a rundown of shipping:

I ordered an i5, 1tb storage, 8gb ram Gold MBA on 07/31

Processed for one week (08/07)

Prepared to Ship on 08/11, card was charged

Shipped 08/12

-Arrived in ZhengZhou, China 08/12 and departed on 08/14

-Arrived in Incheon, Korea 2 hours later (08/14)

—package was “lost” for four days at the point, but would usually take only 24 hours to go through Incheon

-Departed Incheon, Korea on 08/18

-Arrived in Alaska, U.S. for customs on 08/18

—missed the shipping plane twice (“mechanical error”)

-Cleared customs and left Alaska (08/19)

-Arrived in Louisville, Kentucky on 08/20

—missed the plane twice here too

-Departed from Louisville 08/20 at 4pm

-Arrived in Atlanta 08/20 at 11:46pm

-Shipped overnight to my city

-Delivered on 08/21

my macbook arrived earlier than expected! here's my full thread in case it's helpful. i'm in the UK by the way. i ordered a 2020 macbook air with 16gb ram being the only upgrade.

— ordered 7th august, expected delivery 26th aug to 3rd sept

— processing until aug 15th, when it was then being prepared to ship

— shipped 17th august from china to the netherlands. i then got an email around this time saying it would be delivered on the 27th.

(this date is what it said on the apple store app and website, however checking the DHL tracking info it says that it arrived in the netherlands on the 15th)

—  arrived in the netherlands 21st, then was shipped to germany and in the UK in my city by 22nd.

— i was then sent an email on 23rd by hermes with more tracking info, this time saying they had the package with them and was going to be delivered the next day.

— i recieved my MBA around 10-11am on the 24th, earlier than they had estimated. a week before school starts!

if anyone is worried about the tracking, the whole netherlands to germany saga didn't appear for a few days even after it had happened. i just refreshed one day and a stack of updates had appeared. 

during quarantine the days seem to have flown by even in anticipation for my new machine, so i hope everyone in this thread receives theirs soon too.

For anyone looking for up to date (March 2021) information on this question, I ordered my MacBook Air with 16gb RAM and 2TB storage, on 2/26. I was charged for the computer on 3/8, 10 days later, and could start seeing package tracking info that day. I live on the East Coast US and the Apple delivery estimate was 3/16-3/23. Today, 3/12 it’s loaded onto my local UPS truck route so it’s definitely arriving! 2 weeks on the dot from order date, just 4 days after it shipped from China.

I ordered a standard 13 inch mbp with custom airpods on August 17th!! Yesterday, Sep. 11th, my order changed from processing to preparing to ship. Within the next hour it said shipped. My window was Sep. 9-16 and it will arrive here on Monday. The order took a long time but i’m excited for it to finally come. good luck to you all!

Mine is arrived today. I'll do a quick timeline of my order.

Aug 3rd - Ordered with Airpods - money for Airpods charged to my bank account straight away.

Aug 4th - Airpods Arrive, MBP is 'Processing'

Aug 18th - MBP still processing

Aug 19th - Before I woke up it updated saying ready to ship and money is taken out of my account for laptop.

Aug 19th - In the evening I got a text from courier and email from Apple saying it was shipped

Aug 20th - Arrives

Hope people find this info useful :)

I order my Mac book air 13’ in august 19

-processing order until August 25.

-preparing for shipping early morning august 26.

-shipping at 11am august 26

so I’m receiving my MacBook today, I’m happing it got my on my nerves too.

They gave arriving date 8/27-31, so is coming the first day they gave me 👌🏼

I placed my order for a MacBook Air and free AirPods on September 2nd and my AirPods shipped the same day, and I received them the next. My MacBook Air remained at Processing until September 10, where it then moved from preparing to ship to shipped within a few hours. Should be arriving tomorrow!

I ordered the exact same model, on the exact same date as you, with the exact same delivery window. Are you in the UK also? Because mine moved from processing to shipping today after 24 days and it seems to be the same with most others, that the status tends to move to shipping a day or two after the earliest arrival date. Also if you made any customisations, that could be more reason for delay as well. Hope this helps.

My computer shipped the evening of the 26th. 27th China time. Expected to arrive on the 3rd. Just received my AppleCare+ proof of coverage via email as well. 12 days from my order date

Spent 19 hours in preparing to ship. My bank was charged 30 minutes before the status change.

When I ordered, it took about 2 weeks to process, 2 days to ship, and 4 to deliver. I thought it was going to take forever but it ended up arriving 3 days before the estimated delivery window.

ordered 9/3. processing 9/4. preparing to ship 9/13. shipped 9/14. invoice received 9/15. arrived 9/29. from appleph.

Good to hear - mine shipped this morning at 4pm China time, already in the US waiting to clear customs. Estimated arrival on or before the 9th. Original projected arrival time from Apple was the 10th-17th for me. $1800 model with the i7 upgrade.

I ordered my MBA on July 31st, prepared to ship on August 10, shipped on August 11, left main facility on the 11th and got to Zhengzhou on the 12th. Left there and got to Korea on the 14th. Expected to go to Alaska, Memphis, then Georgia and be delivered on the 19th. Hope this helps!