macOS Golden Gate 27 and the Future of OpenCore Legacy Patcher

Hello everyone! It's that time of year again, and additionally the last as well in a bittersweet moment for the project. Apple delivered on its promise last year as macOS Golden Gate 27 does not support Intel-based Macs.

As the end of an era for macOS, Hackintoshing, and legacy Macs, we'd like to provide a small set of information on Tahoe, Golden Gate, and the future of OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

• Dropped Models
• "What about Golden Gate???"
• The Future of OCLP

Dropped Models

With this release, we see the last remaining Intel-based Macs being dropped.

MacPro7,1       - Mac Pro (2019)
MacBookPro16,1  - MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
MacBookPro16,2  - MacBook Pro (13-inch, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports, 2020)
MacBookPro16,4  - MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) with Radeon Pro 5600M
iMac20,1        - iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)
iMac20,2        - iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) with Radeon Pro 5700/5700 XT

No Apple silicon Macs made their way out.

Dropped hardware

As an added tidbit, most kernel and driver extensions for Intel Mac-specific hardware were removed with the beta 1 release last Monday.

"What about Golden Gate???"

Many of you likely already know about the projects to get PowerPC Macs running Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 - using binaries from developer betas and earlier releases that did support that architecture.

It's clear that Apple knew what it was doing this time around. While some bits and pieces of Intel support remain, userspace is almost entirely Apple silicon-only (aside from Safari and command line tools, to retain compatibility with Rosetta) and most kernel extensions related to Intel-based Macs have been removed. What remains (in the Kernel Debug Kit and on-disk) is not enough to grant entry to this release of macOS.

As such, the team remains focused on macOS Tahoe 26 and releases previously supported by OCLP - there are currently no plans to attempt working with Golden Gate.

The Future of OCLP

We'd like to address a major elephant in the room: macOS Tahoe 26 support in OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

It comes as no surprise that the team has shrunk in the time since its announcement at WWDC25. Apple created many roadblocks with Tahoe's under-the-hood changes that have resulted in internal delays, even from just one beta to another. Team members needed to step down for their health, others found their way towards a very small fruit-related company in Cupertino, and the rest have had their own lives to tend to while progress slowly marches forward.

We're still working on Tahoe. We cannot provide ETAs as before, but we can say that we're hoping to see the light at the end of this tunnel. Giving Intel Macs one last send-off, even if it's a bit late, is something the team likes to use to motivate themselves in pushing forward. We ask for some more patience while we continue to work towards this. ❤️