How to Detect macOS > 10.15.7
Reported macOS Version Is No Longer Reliable
It's currently impossible to detect macOS versions newer than 10.15 using only the user-agent string. This issue is primarily caused by macOS version being capped at 10.15 on all major browsers:
Cap the User-Agent string's reported macOS version at 10.15🡥 —Mozilla
Cap the reported macOS version in the user-agent string at 10_15_7🡥 —Google
INFO
Since rolling out its user-agent reduction program, Chromium-based browsers in macOS will always identify itself as Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7 for all of these macOS versions:
- macOS 10.15 (Catalina)
- macOS 11 (Big Sur)
- macOS 12 (Monterey)
- macOS 13 (Ventura)
- macOS 14 (Sonoma)
- macOS 15 (Sequoia)
- macOS 26 (Tahoe)
Detecting the Real macOS Version with UAParser.js
Luckily, there is a kind of workaround by utilizing client hints feature:
import { UAParser } from 'ua-parser-js';
const uap = new UAParser();
let os = uap.getOS();
console.log('Based on user agent: ', os);
// { name: "macOS", version: "10.15.7" }
uap.getOS().withClientHints().then(os => {
console.log('Based on client hints', os);
// { name: "macOS", version: "11" }
});LIMITATION
Client hints feature is only supported in Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, etc.). In other browsers like Firefox and Safari, withClientHints() gives no effect to the result and still detected as macOS 10.15.7.
References: