monterey sonoma lightroom

A possible option: If your Mac has an Intel processor, it should be possible to upgrade it past macOS 12 using Open Core Legacy Patcher software (free). This does work for many people and is known to be trustworthy. However, use of OCLP is not supported by Apple or Adobe and so it is completely at your own risk. If Apple won’t support macOS 13 or later on your Mac, then Apple never tested macOS 13 or later on your model; there may be issues. 

Also, installing and maintaining OCLP may be challenging for those who aren’t very technical. But at least it’s all point-and-click. You just have to pay close attention to the instructions and do everything in exactly the right way and order, especially before applying a major version upgrade of macOS. 

Macs newer than about 8-10 years can update past Monterey (I had a 2015 MacBook Pro that was limited to Monterey) and Apple is no longer supporting those older machines. Its probably time to start looking at upgrading to a newer computer. An M4 Mac mini (for example) can be had for about US$500 directly from Apple and will run rings around an older Intel mac.

https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac

What model and year of Mac do you have? It sounds like:

• Lightroom Classic is compatible with macOS...just not the latest version.
• It’s the same way with macOS: macOS is compatible with your Mac...just not the latest version.

This is because both Apple and Adobe raise their system requirements by one major version every autumn when they release their wave of major upgrades. And we just saw the latest Apple and Adobe upgrades a few weeks ago. When that happened, both companies raised their system requirements again. It goes up every year, so it’s guaranteed that after a finite number of years, any Mac will one day not be compatible.

The details:

Apple and Adobe both support the last three major versions of macOS.

In 2024, Apple released macOS 15, so that meant they shifted up to supporting macOS 13, 14, and 15. In 2025, a few weeks ago, they released macOS 26, so now they only issue updates for macOS 14, 15, and 26.

For Creative Cloud apps Adobe generally follows the Apple support policy, so for Lightroom Classic 15 which was released a few weeks ago, the minimum macOS version it supports is the same as Apple’s oldest supported version: macOS 14.

It sounds like your Mac is old enough that it falls beyond the most recent macOS that Apple currently supports, which is macOS 14. If your Mac can run macOS 12, then it can run Lightroom Classic 13, but nothing newer.

Adding to that is Adobe only makes the last two major versions available for installation in the Creative Cloud desktop app. The last two versions are Lightroom Classic 14 and 15.

Putting together all of that info reveals your gap: To run the oldest version of Lightroom Classic available for installation (version 14), the Mac has to be able to run macOS 13 or later. If the Mac can’t go past macOS 12, then no versions of Lightroom Classic are available for installation.

Because that advancement of system requirements has happened every single year for a while now, we know that both Apple and Adobe will stop supporting a Mac about 7 or 8 years after its release. Which is why it will help to know which model and year of Mac you have.

If you hardware is too old for a more modern version of MacOS, then it only makes sense that the same applies to other software, like 

Lightroom Classic.