What mac os should I upgrade to for my mac?

[Jeannie]

So I have an imac 9retina 5, 27", late 2015)
processor 3.2 GHz Intel core i5
memory 8 gb 1867 MHz DDR3
Graphics AMD radeon R9 M490 2048 MB

The mac os I currently have is el capitan. And at this moment I am not wanting to purchase a new mac.
I need to upgrade from el capitan to something that will work with my mac.
Do you think High Sierra will work?

Jeannie

 

[chas_m]

Your Mac is capable of running the latest macOS version (Catalina), as well as the next one (Big Sur), likely coming out next month. As mentioned in another thread, it is a little difficult to get downloads of older macOS versions, but not impossible. If your software is all up-to-date, I'd suggest just jumping to Catalina. Since you're so far behind on the updates, though, I'd suspect some of your software might be out-of-date and could "break" with such a large jump.

If that's the case, I'd suggest updating to Mojave, the previous macOS version before Catalina and the last to support old 32-bit software. You can obtain it from the Mac App Store by clicking this link: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/macos-mojave/id1398502828?mt=12 (it's on a page that is hidden from normal searches)

Remember to make a backup of your present stuff ahead of running the upgrade. It is still possible that any very old software could stop working, but newer versions are likely available.