When Was Your Mac Built? How to Find The Make & Model Year of a Mac

You’ll often hear Mac users reference their machines by a model and the build year (for example, Mac Mini 2010), or by a timeline within the year it was released (iMac mid-2011 model). Sure some Mac users just have an amazing memory for this stuff, but everyone else can retrieve the model year and build date of their Mac by looking under the About This Mac screen in Lion or later:

• Pull down the  Apple menu and select “About This Mac”
• Click on “More Info…” and look under the Macs model name to find the specific model and model year in the subheader

These build dates are used to determine compatibility and system requirements for OS X upgrades like Mountain Lion, support for specific features like AirPlay, and even to determine eligibility for the rare recall if there’s a hardware fault with a specific Mac model.

OS X Mountain Lion and Lion include the improved About This Mac screen, though Macs running Snow Leopard or before will have to find the build date through System Profiler, and some pre-2008 Macs will need to go based on the “Model Identifier” instead of a direct date reference.