What can I do with a 27", Late 2013 iMac??

JPEGjunkie wrote:

How were you able to use your 2013 iMac as a display for your m2 machine? Did you have to do anything special for it to show up with screen sharing? Currently trying to get my 2013 iMac to work as a display for my m1 MacBook and not finding anything helpful

The person to whom you are replying said that 'When I need to access the iMac, I power it on and connect to it via Screen Sharing from my M2 Mac mini Pro running macOS Sonoma 14.4.1."

I believe that that feature would have allowed him to view the iMac's screen in a window on the M2 Pro Mac mini's screen – so he could operate the iMac using the keyboard, mouse, and screen belonging to the M2 Pro Mac mini.

It would not have made the 2013 iMac a second display for the M2 Pro Mac mini. You might be thinking of Target Display Mode. The 2013 iMacs support Target Display Mode using Thunderbolt input – but Apple put restrictions on "the other Mac." It must be a Mac released in 2019 or earlier, running Catalina or earlier. That means that your M1 MacBook is too new to use your 2013 iMac as a Target Display.

Use your iMac as a display with target display mode - Apple Support

Your 2013 iMac is also too old to serve as an AirPlay Receiver for AirPlay to Mac. AirPlay is not as good as a Target Display Mode connection or a connection to a real hardware monitor. Still, because AirPlay from Macs was around long before AirPlay to Macs, there is a possibility that you could set up your M1 MacBook as an AirPlay receiver and use it as an extra screen for the 2013 iMac. (I know, not the direction you were hoping for.)

System requirements for Continuity features on Apple devices - Apple Support

Set up your Mac to be an AirPlay Receiver - Apple Support

There are third-party workaround products (Luna Display, Duet Display) that might let you use your 2013 iMac as a second display for your M1 MacBook, but the connection won't be as good as with a real hardware monitor. There is little likelihood that it would be worth it to reuse a 21.5" 1920x1080 iMac screen, and even if that iMac was a 27" one with 2560x1440 resolution, the cost of real 27" 2560x1440 and 27" 3840x2160 monitors is low enough that getting a decent 27" standalone monitor would make you a lot happier.

Mostly you just need a more modern Browser than Safari on Mojave, or High Sierra like Firefox or Brave.

https://brave.com/

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/83.0/system-requirements/

Firefox 83.0 System Requirements (mozilla.org)

Opera…

https://www.opera.com/download/requirements

Opera system requirements | Opera

Thanks to dialabrain…

Firefox 112 is now the current version. runs in High Sierra.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

Look into the Free LibreOffice, it handles MS Office files like Word & Excel, & Page Layout…

https://www.libreoffice.org/

Thanks to Matti Haveri…

MS Office for Mac Mini - Apple Community

LibreOffice 4.0.6.2_MacOS_PPC works in OS X 10.5.8 (last official PowerPC version).

LibreOffice 4.3.7.2_MacOS_x86.dmg (and x86-64?) works in OS X 10.6.

LibreOffice 7.0.4 works in macOS 10.11 and 10.14.

Follow the the link, and scroll down to "Two easy ways to trade in". Then select online or in store. Follow the prompts. More, Apple will scrap it and re-use a lot of it.

A 27" Late 2013 iMac can be upgraded to Catalina (but no further). Catalina is no longer one of the most recent three, so some application vendors like Adobe and Microsoft might no longer offer software for it. Still, it would probably make sense to upgrade to Catalina (or Mojave or High Sierra, if one has 32-bit applications).

As with all 27" iMacs (save for the 27" iMac Pro), you can upgrade RAM yourself. This one takes up to 32 GB. If Apple's specifications are correct, that machine originally came with at least 8 GB of RAM. That's enough to run High Sierra and applications like Web browsers and word processors reasonably fast. If you were running a copy of Windows in a virtual machine, you might want more.

The USB ports support USB 3.0, which is good news if you want to upgrade your startup disk to a SSD the easy way – by adding an external SSD, rather than performing surgery to replace the HDD buried inside the iMac.

The Thunderbolt ports are only Thunderbolt 1, but you can plug in a Mini DisplayPort monitor with resolution of up to 2560x1600 pixels. So basically any 24" 1920x1080, 24" 1920x1200, or 27" 2560x1440 monitor that has regular DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort input. (The built-in display is a 27" 2560x1440 pixel one.)

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) - Technical Specifications

LibreOffice is up to

• Version 7.5.4 – Requires Mojave or later
• Version 7.4.7 – Requires High Sierra or later

Release notes indicate that as of August 2023, new versions of LibreOffice will likely require Catalina or later.

JApples123 wrote:

• Hey everyone...

I've recently come into possession of a Late 2013 iMac - but cannot upgrade and Apple has labelled it at obsolete. It feels particularly unsustainable to scrap it but I also don't want it to just gather dust.

Upgrade the CPU?

• Use the display as a third screen?

• Anything else??

Any hints / tips would be helpful!

Thanks

You can use it as a lower-end machine for emails and web browsing. That's what I use my wife's old 2015 iMac for, after I had an Apple Authorized Service Provider replace its internal HDD with a new 1 TB SSD, which costed about $150. I've been using it since 2022 in this way and it is actually a beautiful machine, not a scratch and a nice, large display. It saves me the trouble of lugging my 16-inch MacBook Pro upstairs. The iMac has iCloud going with Messages and Photos all synchronized to the other Macs and yours, like it, still has enough power to do a fair amount of computing. We even installed Adobe CC on it and it runs Lightroom and Photoshop AI just fine. You can also run Microsoft 365 and various other apps. I'm assuming your 2013 iMac is not that different from my 2015 iMac.

My 2013 27-in iMac that is running Mojave only has screen sharing selected and once powered, in another room, I use the macOS Screen Sharing app on my M2 Mac mini. It helps to have a speedy wired or Wi-Fi network connection. On the recipient Mac, one references the remote Mac (same network segment) as hostname.local.

Share the screen of another Mac - Apple Support

Throw it a rousing Irish wake and then recycle it at the nearest Apple store.

Upgrade to Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon.

You can install 32GB of DDR3 RAM to the max.

Donate it, recycle it, set it up for ethernet streaming if you don't trust Wi-Fi's security on an old Mac, use it off line, keep it as a backup Mac in case other Macs go down, as long as the drive is good, use it as a backup repository.

Carbon Copy Cloner v5 still runs on many of the OS versions that Mac supports, and appears to be a supported version (even though it is not the latest version).

https://bombich.com/

SuperDuper! 3.7.5 (the current version) will also run on many of the OS versions that Mac supports.

https://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

I keep my Late-2013 iMac running Mojave 10.14.6 to run 32-bit applications that are not supported on the last operating system (Catalina) for this device. That includes Pages'09 v4.3 and iPhoto 9.6.1.

When I need to access the iMac, I power it on and connect to it via Screen Sharing from my M2 Mac mini Pro running macOS Sonoma 14.4.1.

How were you able to use your 2013 iMac as a display for your m2 machine? Did you have to do anything special for it to show up with screen sharing? Currently trying to get my 2013 iMac to work as a display for my m1 MacBook and not finding anything helpful

Here's where to go if the machine needs an upgrade to High Sierra, Mojave, or Catalina. (The App Store hides old versions of macOS by default.)

How to download and install macOS - Apple Support

On the 2013 iMac>System Preferences>Screen Sharing, then setup Screen Sharingor Remote Management...