Dropping support for x86_64 intel mac #3053
Description
As of release v18.11, we will no longer be building and releasing binaries for x86_64 macOS.
Apple stopped manufacturing Intel Macs in 2023, and macOS Tahoe (26) will be the final macOS version to support Intel hardware. After Tahoe, there will be no x86_64 macOS kernel or system libraries to target.
CI infrastructure is disappearing. GitHub Actions is retiring Intel macOS runners:
- macos-13 (last free Intel runner) was retired December 2025
- macos-15-intel is available until August 2027, then Intel support ends entirely (costs $0.062/minute and is SUPER slow)
- Free-tier open source projects no longer have access to Intel Mac CI
The Rust (and wider) ecosystem is moving on: RFC 3841
"The x86_64-apple-darwin target has no long-term future... the free GitHub Actions macOS x86_64 runners that the Rust project relies on will be discontinued soon."
Intel runners have also been very slow for us, and caused significant delay to our build pipelines. If it turns out there's a huge % of our users relying on Intel macs, we could reconsider