Apple pulls the plug on macOS Server

macOS Server app

Apple is officially discontinuing its $20 macOS Server app starting on Thursday, years after beginning to phase out the service.

In a recent support document, Apple announced that it officially pulled the plug on the service as of April 21, 2022. The last version of the app will be macOS Server 5.12.2.

The company added that existing customers can continue to download and use the app on macOS Monterey. However, it also noted that many of the core features of the macOS Server platform are already included in more recent versions of the Mac operating system.

"The most popular server features— Caching Server, File Sharing Server, and Time Machine Server are bundled with every installation of macOS High Sierra and later, so that even more customers have access to these essential services at no extra cost," Apple says.

Apple has also provided additional resources and support documents for users wanting to migrate from Profile Manager to other mobile device management (MDM) solutions.

The macOS Server app first debuted in 1999 and provided a variety of server and system administration tools and capabilities to macOS users. Apple has phased out some many aspects of the service over the years, incorporating functionality into other apps.

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17 Comments

rob53

said about 2 years ago

The nice thing about OSX Server was all configurations were handled in one place. Now you have to go find all the features.

As for MDM, Apple’s MDM products are more expensive than the $20.

sevenfeet

said about 2 years ago

One of the nicer features of OS X Server back in the day was the UI for management of DNS. It wasn't for extremely complex situations but it was very handy for small to medium sized networks and it was a lot easier than hand editing text files.

mcdave

said about 2 years ago

Has all the functionality been transitioned to other services for customers outside the US?

JinTech

said about 2 years ago

I remember back in the early days of Mac OS X (client) you use to be able to enable Web Sharing where essentially you could turn your Mac into a web hosting server. Any idea how to re-enable this option or is it gone for good?

DavidEsrati

said about 2 years ago

I guess there is no "Server" for the rest of us.

When they stripped out features- my small business which depended on it's features was thrown into a mess of problems-

much like when our last Airport Extreme bit the dust.

Gone was our easy internal messenger-

gone was our internal wiki and dns setups.
Our file sharing permissions started going wonky.
Our centralized Time machine died-

and - all of a sudden first we have to try the VPP system of software licenses- then the even more complicated Apple business manager- which wasn't set up for business at all- but for schools.
The whole concept of Apple ID- for a shop with multiple computers- owned by a company- and assigned to employees- got super complicated-
and it was super frustrating.
Now- we have a raspberry pi running our DNS and our Wiki
we're constantly having our apple messages go to personal phones instead of computers-

time machine- may or may not work with the remote drives- and stops frequently.
File sharing permissions get garbled more and more-
And in a day when collaboration is all the rage-
we're using fontbase to manage fonts-
and a bunch of other programs that are halfassed collaboration tools- that should be where Apple is scoring big time.

I wonder if anyone at Apple remembers when Apple was a small business?
Because they sure don't act like they care about mine.
Bring back Apple server. Please. Please. With all of it's ease of use capabilities.