Low End Mac's Online Tech Journal

How Old Is My Mac?

Dan Knight

It's easy to visit a site like Low End Mac and find out when a model was first produced and discontinued. But how do you determine how old a specific unit is?

Apple has a coding scheme they use in the serial number to indicate both when and where a Mac was made. This information has been published on other sites and discussed in various news groups, which is where I came by it. And I thought it would be of interest to any Mac owner. Your serial number tells what year and week of the year your Mac was made, as well as which factory built it.

Unfortunately, Apple considers this information a trade secret (despite the fact I found it on a public newsgroup). Posting this information here led to a strong letter from Michael S. Rubin, Attorney, Worldwide Sales and Service Law Department, Apple Computer, Inc.

And I can't even show you the letter!

So if you want to know how old your Apple product is or where it was built, you'll have to obtain that information somewhere other than this page. (The computer profiles on Low End Mac usually indicate a range of dates during which a model was produced.)

Join us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, use our Google+ page, or read our RSS news feed

Recent Online Tech Journal Columns

Optimized Software Builds Bring Out the Best in Your Mac, 2009.06.30. Applications compiled for your Mac's CPU can load more quickly and run faster than ones compiled for universal use.
Low End Mac's Safe Sleep FAQ, 2009.06.15. What is Safe Sleep mode? Which Macs support it? How can you enable or disable it? And more.
The Original Macintosh, 2009.01.12. An in-depth look at the original Macintosh and how it shaped future Macs.
More in the Online Tech Journal index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: PowerBook Duo 230, introduced 1992.10.19. Just over 4 pounds, the 33 MHz 230 helped launch the Duo line.
May 21 in LEM history: 99: Not censorship - 01: USB and FireWire drives - 02: Hooked by a PowerBook - Printer sharing for Mac OS X - 04: Less frequent OS X uprades: Good or bad? - 07: I won't get an iPhone this year - Can 262,144 colors be considered 'millions'? - Most durable 'Book - 3 GB in a Mac mini? - 08: Quadra a great server for vintage Mac network
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Opinions expressed are those of their authors and may not reflect the opinion of Cobweb Publishing. Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all.
Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2013 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Low End Mac, LowEndMac, and lowendmac.com are trademarks of Cobweb Publishing Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad, iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, Mac Pro, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it, and we don't share the information we have with others. For more details, see our Terms of Use.