Following yesterday’s article about how to detect and assess Universal code, I have made substantial revisions in my free utility for checking apps, command tools, and a wide range of other executables, ArchiChect. Unfortunately, these new checks rely on features in macOS Mojave and later; if you want to run ArchiChect on an earlier version of macOS, please use version 2.3, which I will leave available on its Product Page.

Previous versions of ArchiChect have relied on interpreting the opening bytes of executable files, their ‘Magic’. Although these are generally reliable, they don’t detect which architectures are supported in a Universal binary, and in some cases could imply that executable code which only supported Intel architectures and not Apple Silicon actually supported both. ArchiChect now uses the lipo tool to determine which architectures are supported by Universal Mach-O files, which should improve its accuracy.

In addition, I have extended architectural tests to cover a wider range of executable code. This should enable you to examine dylibs and a wide range of executable bundles as well as apps and command tools.

This new version is itself a Universal App, so should run happily on all versions of macOS from Mojave onwards, on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.

ArchiChect version 2.4 Universal is now available from here: archichect24
from Downloads above, and from its Product Page. It doesn’t take part in the auto-update mechanism, which means it won’t nag you to update if you continue to run a previous version.