Apple to close its Support Community forum on November 20

Apple will permanently close its official Support Community, the company's long-running peer-help forum, on November 20, according to a notice posted on the community's home page and first reported by MacRumors and Engadget.

The site remains accessible for now but has been switched to a read-only state, meaning existing threads can be viewed while new posts are no longer accepted. Apple's notice directs users to its official Support site, saying they can continue to find trusted guidance and support there.

In a statement to MacRumors, Apple said the decision came "after a careful evaluation of strategy and customer needs." The company did not elaborate on what that evaluation involved or what, if anything, will replace the forum's peer-to-peer function.

The community dates back to 1998 and operated for a period under the name Apple Discussions before adopting its current branding. Over the years it became a familiar landing spot for people searching for fixes to device problems or instructions for using specific features. Forum threads have often ranked prominently in search results for technical queries, turning user replies into an informal second layer of support documentation.

The quality of that layer has always been uneven. Some answers resolve a problem cleanly; others are outdated, incomplete, or simply wrong. Apple's own messaging leans on the distinction, pointing users toward first-party support content rather than community replies.

The closure removes a destination where users could ask other owners and technicians questions directly. Apple's statement frames the move around strategy and customer needs without describing what demand it measured or how it weighed the forum's search traffic and archive value. Whether the read-only archive will stay online indefinitely is also unaddressed in the company's notice.

The practical effect for users who relied on the forum will depend on what they used it for. Reference threads on common problems remain viewable, but new troubleshooting questions can no longer be posted there. For advice from other users, Apple's notice leaves people to the wider web, including social platforms, where similar discussions already take place.

For now, the change is confirmed only in Apple's own notice and statement to MacRumors: a November 20 closing date, a read-only interim period, and a recommendation to use Apple's support site.