Warning to millions of Mac users – you could be at risk of losing your Steam library

STEAM, gaming’s largest online storefront, has issued a new warning to its users on Mac products.

Some macOS versions will stop receiving support, locking people out of their gaming libraries.

Edgar Almeida via Unsplash

The Steam Deck will be unaffected by the change.[/caption]

Steam previously announced that users on Windows 7 and 8 would no longer be able to access Steam from January 1, 2023.

However, the Mac shutdown is happening even sooner, and users feel blindsided by the announcement.

Steam will stop working on Mac on September 1, 2023, so there are just two months left to change operating system.

The systems affected are macOS 10.11 “El Capitan” and 10.12 “Sierra”, from 2018 and 2019.

Steam’s reason for the shutdown on older Mac versions is the same as why support is being removed from Windows 7 and 8.

The Steam launcher uses Google Chrome in order to run, and Chrome will shortly remove support for these operating systems.

A statement released by Steam reads: “On September 1 2023, Steam will officially stop supporting macOS versions 10.11 (“El Capitan”) and 10.12 (“Sierra”). 

“After that date, the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of macOS. 

“In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of macOS.”

Steam encourages users to update their OS as soon as possible to prevent them from losing access to their library.

If users do not update their system, then the Steam launcher will no longer run from September.

This means that users will be locked out of their Steam library, and no longer be able to play games on their PC.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.