macOS 27 Golden Gate does something Apple has never shipped before: a built-in list of the Intel apps on your Mac that stop working once Rosetta is removed. Open System Settings → General → About, find Intel-Based apps, and click Details. It's clear, it's on by default, and for some entries macOS even points you to where a native version lives.
It's a genuinely good addition. If your Mac is mainly for browsing, email, office documents and video calls, it is the whole job: open the list, replace what's flagged before macOS 28, and you're done. You don't need us for that, and we'd rather say so plainly than sell you something you won't use.
The catch is in the name. It lists Intel apps. A lot of the Intel code on a working Mac isn't an app, and Apple's own documentation says the list doesn't catch it.
What Apple's list leaves out
This isn't our claim, it's Apple's. The macOS 27 developer release notes flag a known issue: Intel-based plug-ins and loaders may not appear in Settings, and may not trigger any incompatibility warning. Apple's own advice is to go and check the plug-in folders by hand, naming the audio plug-in, printer and colour-picker locations among others.
So the list stops at the application boundary. Everything below it (plug-ins, drivers, system extensions, and the Intel parts tucked inside apps that look native) is left for you to find. On a creative or developer Mac, that is where most of the real Intel exposure actually lives.
Where the hidden Intel code lives
Plug-ins, by the app that loads them. A Universal host opens fine, the project loads, and then the Intel plug-in slot is simply empty. Nothing crashes and nothing warns you. The feature just isn't there.
- Music: Audio Units, VST, VST3, AAX (Pro Tools) and CLAP, plus audio drivers like BlackHole and Loopback. Usually the single biggest area of Intel exposure on the Mac.
- Video: FxPlug (Final Cut Pro, Motion), OFX (DaVinci Resolve, Nuke, Fusion), and the Premiere and After Effects plug-ins that live inside the Adobe bundle.
- Photo: Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom Classic and Capture One plug-ins.
- 3D: Cinema 4D, Maya, Houdini and Rhino modules. Fewer people, but one Intel plug-in here can hold up a whole pipeline.
System pieces that fail quietly. These tend to look like random Mac weirdness rather than a Rosetta problem: an Intel Spotlight importer (a file type quietly stops being searchable), a QuickLook generator (a Finder preview goes blank), a virtual camera (OBS or Camo vanishes from the camera menu in Zoom and Teams), plus preference panes, screen savers, launch agents and helper daemons that simply stop appearing or starting.
The Intel parts inside native-looking apps. This is the one even careful people miss. An app can ship a Universal main binary with an Intel-only sub-binary inside it (an XPC service, an app extension, a login item, a helper tool). The app launches and runs natively on Apple silicon, so any app-level view, including Apple's, reasonably treats it as ready. The feature backed by that embedded binary can still break on macOS 28.
What Rosetta Check does about it
Rosetta Check reads the architecture of every binary on disk, including each executable embedded inside an .app bundle, and never launches a thing. Each finding is named by the app it belongs to ("AAX (Avid Pro Tools)", "XPC Service (in Adobe Photoshop)"), and you can filter to Only Intel for a clean list of what to replace. There's a fuller walkthrough in how to find every Intel plug-in, driver and extension on your Mac.
It rolls all of it (apps, every plug-in type, system extensions, embedded helpers) into one Total Mac Readiness Score. Replace one Intel plug-in and the number moves; reach 100% and the hidden pieces are accounted for too. It also sits in the menu bar and tells you within seconds when a new Intel binary turns up, so dragging in an old VST3 next month doesn't quietly reopen the problem.
One more thing the built-in list can't do: tell you whether a native version actually exists yet. Rosetta Check is backed by a community catalogue of tens of thousands of Intel binaries reported by thousands of opted-in Macs. When one of them sees an Apple silicon or Universal build of an app you're still running as Intel, you get a "Native version spotted" note, with the version number to look for. If nothing has been spotted in months, that's your cue to plan a replacement rather than keep waiting for an update. It's opt-in, anonymous, and on-device by default, sharing only lightweight "I've seen this" signals, never your files or personal data.
If you look after more than one Mac
The built-in list lives on a single Mac, in one person's Settings, which is exactly right for an individual. For a team or a lab, Rosetta Check exports both apps and components to CSV and JSON with a predictable filename for automated collection, and ships as an MDM-deployable build with managed configuration keys, so you can build one migration picture across the whole fleet. See the fleet audit guide and the MDM deployment guide.
The bottom line
If your Mac is a general-purpose computer, macOS 27's built-in list is genuinely all you need. Open it, act on what's flagged, and you're set for macOS 28.
If your Mac is also your studio, your edit suite or your development machine, or you look after a roomful of them, your real Intel exposure runs past the app list into plug-ins, drivers and the code hidden inside otherwise-native apps. Apple has told you in its own release notes that the list won't catch it. That's the gap Rosetta Check 2.0 is built to close: run a full scan, get a single readiness score, keep an eye on what changes, and lean on the community to tell you when a native version is really out there.
For more on the timeline and how to prepare, see what happens to your Intel apps in macOS 28, how to prepare your Mac for macOS 27, and Apple's own guidance in Using Intel-based apps on a Mac with Apple silicon.