Once upon a time, Apple sold a magical white box called the Time Capsule. It backed up your Mac wirelessly, looked like a minimalist loaf of bread, and it was one of the most elegant backup solutions in the tech industry. In fact, even in its dying days, it still is.
But now, in 2025, Apple has finally done what it’s been hinting at for years: Time Capsule support is officially toast in macOS 27.
Apple didn’t kill Time Capsule quickly. No, it let it linger like a ghost in your network settings. First, it disbanded the AirPort team in 2016. Then it discontinued the hardware in 2018. And now, with macOS 27, it’s pulling the plug on Time Machine backups to Time Capsule and any other drives using the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP).
It’s like watching someone slowly back out of a party they hosted, while quietly taking the snacks with them.
Time Capsule relied on outdated protocols and aging hardware. AFP is being deprecated, SMBv1 is hanging on by a thread, and Apple’s idea of “support” for legacy gear is basically a shrug and a link to a help article last updated during the Obama administration.
If you’re still using a Time Capsule, you’re essentially trusting your backups to a discontinued product that Apple now actively discourages. It’s like storing your valuables in a VHS tape and if you think sounds familiar, I wrote an article about replacing your Time Capsule back in 2023. Here it is for a refresh.
Just a quick side note… all these terms like AFP and SMB are just formats for sharing files on a network… nothing to worry about really.
What You Should Do Instead? Well the advise is the same as it was in 2023…buy a real external drive: USB-C, Thunderbolt, SSD—whatever suits your Mac which you can plug directly into your Mac or, less elegantly, into your Time Machine – still works beautifully with direct-attached storage.
Use a NAS: Synology, QNAP, or anything that supports SMB and doesn’t rely on Apple’s ghost protocols.
Consider cloud backups like Backblaze that are great but they take a while to restore an entire mac… but that are a great addition to any local backup solution. There is also using iCloud and iCloud drive. This won’t get every last drop of your mac but it will save your desktop items, documents, photos, bookmarks and contacts, ect.
Time Capsule was a noble experiment. A wireless backup dream. But dreams fade, and Apple’s made it clear: macOS 27 is the final nail in the capsule-shaped coffin. So raise a toast, unplug that relic, and move on to a backup solution that doesn’t require necromancy.
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