Check your apps are M1-safe with this free tool from iMazing

Apple New M1 Chip (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

iMazing has released a free tool that checks whether your apps are compatible with Apple silicon.

Apple's new M1 Macs are proving very popular indeed and you could well be tempted to pick one up because they're super fast, super quiet, and super cool. But what if the apps you use every day aren't ready for Apple silicon? How do you even find out? The folk at iMazing have launched a free open source tool that has the answers.

The tool, simply called Silicon, can scan your Applications folder – or you can drag an app into Silicon's window – and then tell you whether an app is M1-ready or built for Intel. If it's the latter your app should still work – it'll just need to run via Rosetta 2 instead.

Imazing Silicon Screenshot (Image credit: DigiDNA)

Thankfully, Rosetta 2 is so fast that it shouldn't impact performance too much. But if you want to make full use of the power afforded by the M1 chip you're going to want a universal app wherever possible. And Silicon will tell you which apps are ready to do their thing on a shiny new M1 Mac.

You can download Silicon for free from iMazing and it's even up on Github, too.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.