Which Adapter for USB to Thunderbolt 4

The Apple Thunderbolt 3-to-2 adapter is only for connecting Thunderbolt accessories – like Thunderbolt 1/2 docks and the 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display.

You would not use it for connecting

• Mini DisplayPort displays and adapters
• USB-A (USB 2.x, USB 3.x) accessories (unless you already have a Thunderbolt 1/2 dock, and you want to hook it up in order to use the USB-A ports on it)

It sounds like you have a lot of accessories that plug into USB-A ports and you need some way to plug them into a USB-C port on your 24" M1 iMac. There are various ways to do this:

• Short adapter cables like the Apple USB-C to USB adapter or its AmazonBasics counterpart.
• Inline adapter plugs.
• USB hubs with four or more USB-A hubs, and a USB-C plug for the link to the computer. (These are like the old powered and unpowered USB-A hubs, just with a USB-C plug on the uplink cable, for convenience.)
• USB-C and Thunderbolt hubs and docks, which may do multiple types of things (like adding some USB-A ports, adding a SDXC card slot, and adding an Ethernet port).

It's a matter of what you need and what fits your budget.

P.S. – In the specific case of the Apple USB SuperDrive, you might need to plug it into an Apple USB-C to USB adapter, and plug that adapter into one of your iMac's USB-C ports. That drive has a reputation for being a bit "picky" about wanting a lot of power.

With other things, plugging them into a powered USB-A hub that supports USB 3.0 (or better) transfer speed is often going to be enough.

An issue with relying solely on the Apple adapter is that you may run out of ports. The 24" iMac has two USB-C (USB, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt) ports. The high-end model adds two USB-C (USB) ports.

You mentioned a "Mac DVD player, external hard drive, and printer." That's three devices. Apple's adapter uses up one USB-C port to give you one USB-A port.

So if you had only the base iMac and you used only Apple adapters, you could plug in at most two devices at one time. In that situation, some sort of hub (even a very basic USB-A hub) would start looking good.

I suggest you contact OWC (MacSales.com) Customer Support and see which of their self powered USB C to Thunderbolt hubs/docks they would recommend for your iMac model and year and budget.

OWC is considered the premier 3rd party hardware supplier for Macs by many of the users here.

Yes – if you have three devices and four ports, you should be set for now.