General compatibility between Xcode and macOS

Xcode versions are usually closely tied to a particular macOS version. Sometimes there is a little leeway where the next major release of Xcode will run on an older version of the OS. But with Xcode, Apple will sometimes introduce an incompatibility in a minor version.

For example, my production system is Ventura and I'm limited to Xcode 15.2 (I think. I'm not there right now.)

In most cases, upgrading Xcode doesn't cause any problems. There are a couple of significant issues with Xcode 16, so it is always important to pay attention to what's next. But I don't see any reason why you would need Xcode 12.4. And if you did (maybe for < 10.13 support), I don't see any reason why you would need Sonoma.

The site https://developer.apple.com/support/xcode/ is listing "Minimum OS required". To my understanding it means "this particular version of macOS and all later/newer versions". Also release notes for Xcode are consistently stating "Xcode xx.x. requires a Mac running macOS yy.yy.y or later."

The Minimum requirements and supported SDKs table lists the minimum required information for using a version of Xcode. It doesn't specify the minimum version of Xcode that can run on a specific macOS version.

I'm also experiencing issues when trying to run Xcode 12.4 on macOS 14.5 (Sonoma), means XCode is not running.

That is expected as explained below:

• macOS Sequoia 15 requires Xcode 16 or later.
• macOS Sonoma 14.1 requires Xcode 15 or later.
• macOS Ventura 13 requires Xcode 14 or later.
• macOS Monterey 12 requires Xcode 13 or later.

The reason is the need to support older macOS Version and the newer ones. We have a bunch of build agents and want to keep the total amount of them as small as possible. And on the other hand use the current version of macOS on them when ever possible.

I'm not sure what you mean by "build agent".

You can use the current version of Xcode to build code that runs on anything from macOS 10.13 "High Sierra" or later.

If you do need to support deployment to 10.12 or earlier, then you will need an earlier version of Xcode. But the cut-off here is Xcode 13.4, not 12.4. See this page for more details.

But otherwise, you are correct. There is a "maximum macOS version requirement" for Xcode, which isn't documented anywhere.

If for some reason you did need an older version of Xcode, then you'll have to run an older, matching version of macOS on either an old computer or a VM.

There is a "maximum macOS version requirement" for Xcode, which isn't documented anywhere.

Please file your suggestion using Feedback Assistant to ask Apple to consider documenting this feature.

@Etresoft

I'm not sure what you mean by "build agent".

We are providing software running on macOS to our customers (we are in B2B business) and need to support older macOS versions and all the versions up to the current one. So we must be able to build for the old versions in case we need a bugfix. Currently we have several build environments (aka build agents) and are going to organize them better according to our needs. And for that we need a clear statement/documentation from Apple.

I'm going to accept your answer to my question since you helped me much more than DTS Engineer (which is actually disappointing...)

Thank you so much!