What is the latest OS available for a 27" iMac from 2013?

Remember that the iCloud Drive is not an off-computer storage facility. It's a syncing feature. Any files you put in the iCloud Drive are mirrored on your Mac. If you accidentally delete a file from the Mac it will be deleted from the iCloud Drive.

If you're concerned about preserving user data then local, external drives are the way to go. Time Machine is included with the system and is the easiest way to backup your user data.

we have iMac 2013 late model. As you all know Apple has stopped providing the further macOS updates to last imac 2013 late model , is it necessary to replace the iMac ? How much life it has left before it start giving the problems ?

nishchal244 wrote:

we have iMac 2013 late model. As you all know Apple has stopped providing the further macOS updates to last imac 2013 late model , is it necessary to replace the iMac ? How much life it has left before it start giving the problems ?

You can certainly keep using it until it bricks.

Nobody here can predict hardware.

Ten years is about the usual outside limit, but five to seven is typical usage.

As for third-party app availability, various vendors support the three most recent macOS versions, but existing app installs will usually continue to work until they don’t.

Secure network connectivity will degrade as well, with High Sierra starting to get a little dicy there.

You’re missing the latest security features of the latest releases, of course.

Have backups of all important data. One of the only ways to mark data as being important is with regular, scheduled backups. Time Machine, or otherwise. No backups means the data is considered worthless, or easily replaced, or re-generated.

@MrHoffman

Thank you for the updates .

Right now I am not saving any data on iMac - hard disk. if there is data then I do data back up in cloud.

But yes I am concerned with the following

Browsing . Also I am taking classes online - not sure how it will impact.

What do you mean by secure network connectivity degrade ?

nishchal244 wrote:

@MrHoffman

Thank you for the updates .

Right now I am not saving any data on iMac - hard disk. if there is data then I do data back up in cloud.

But yes I am concerned with the following

Browsing . Also I am taking classes online - not sure how it will impact.

What do you mean by secure network connectivity degrade ?

Look, your data is clearly not worth anything to you, so I don't see any concerns here. Seriously. Your data is clearly worthless to you. You have no backups, and you're on old hardware, so have at and run it until it fails. Easy.

If that presumption about the value of your data is incorrect, and if your data is valuable, get local backups going. Time Machine or otherwise. Why? Why backups? Because we tire of the always-sad reports of your precious photos or cherished memories or the rest permanently lost. Because permanent loss is the path you're on. You're one corruption away and one failure away from a Bad Day.

What do I mean by secure network connectivity degrading? Secure network connection expectations will increase over time, and will eventually exceed what that older versions of macOS can support and can provide. That means some of your apps may not connect, and your browser may not connect to websites requiring higher security. This if you're using an older version and expectations on secure sites increase past what your version of macOS and its apps can provide. There can be workarounds for some of this, and variant web browsers can help for a while, but the effort involved here tends to increase as older system and network security implementations age out.

Catalina 10.15.7 is the latest version you can run.

+1 What MrHoffman said.