Apple is shutting down its Support Community forums after almost three decades

If you've ever searched for a fix to a stubborn iPhone or Mac problem, there's a good chance you ended up on Apple's Support Community, where customers answer each other's questions. That's ending. Apple has switched the forums to read-only and says they will close permanently on November 20, 2026.

What changed

Visitors this week were met with a notice saying the community will close on November 20, that it no longer accepts new posts, and that it's now available in a read-only state. The notice thanks members for their help and points people to Apple's official support site.

For now you can still browse and search existing threads, and 9to5Mac reported that the "Me too" and voting buttons still worked. You just can't ask a new question or reply. The sign-in button now leads to an internal Apple login page, which suggests posting is limited to Apple staff.

A long history

The forums date back to at least 1998, when they were called Apple Tech Exchange. They were later renamed Apple Discussions, then relaunched as Apple Support Communities in April 2011 with profiles and a reputation system that rewarded people for helping others. Over almost three decades they built up an enormous archive of troubleshooting threads, solved and unsolved alike.

What happens to the archive

That's the big open question. Apple hasn't said whether the existing threads will stay accessible after November 20, and both 9to5Mac and The Register said they had asked the company for details. If the archive goes offline, a lot of hard-won fixes for older devices could disappear from search results with it.

Why Apple might be doing this

Apple hasn't given a reason. The Register points to the obvious pressure: AI chatbots have made user-to-user forums less central to how people look for help. Moderating a huge public forum is also costly, and steering people to official support pages gives Apple more control over the answers they see.