Apple will permanently shut down the Apple Support Community, its official user-to-user help forum, on Friday, November 20, 2026. The notice was posted on the forum itself on Tuesday, November 10, and the site has been in read-only mode ever since: no new questions can be created and existing discussions can no longer be answered.
The notice shown on every page of the forum, hosted at discussions.apple.com, reads: “The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.” Apple directs users to its official support site, support.apple.com.
The forum's last public message was posted at 5:49 p.m. Pacific Time on November 10, shortly before Apple disabled new submissions, according to MacRumors.
A forum with 28 years of history
The community has existed in some form since 1998, when it launched as Apple Tech Exchange. In 2000 it became Apple Discussions, and in 2011 it relaunched as Apple Support Communities, with personalized profiles and a reputation system that rewarded users who helped others. The current name, Apple Support Community, was adopted in 2022.
Besides English, there were communities in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish — and, according to MacRumors, the French and German versions did not display the closure notice, but will meet the same fate.
What happens to the old discussions
Apple has not confirmed what will happen to the archive of discussions. The company told MacRumors that the forums will be entirely removed after November 20 — not even left in read-only mode. No tool to export posts has been announced, and neither has a replacement forum.
On the reason, Apple told MacRumors the decision was made “after a careful evaluation of strategy and customer needs.” The site's sign-in button now leads to an internal Apple page, indicating that only employees can sign in.
Anyone who relies on old forum answers should save the useful discussions before November 20 — Apple offers no download of the posts.
Image credit: Apple Inc. logo, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain; original author: Rob Janoff).
Fontes
- MacRumors — November 20 to Mark the End of an Era at Apple
- 9to5Mac — End of an era: Apple Support Community forums to permanently close
- The Register — Apple tells its Support Community to STFU
- Fast Company — Apple is closing the ‘world’s largest community of Apple fans’
- Apple Support Community (discussions.apple.com)
- Suporte oficial da Apple
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-checked against public posts on X and internet sources. Consult the original sources to confirm the information.
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