macOS 27 gives Mac owners a new way to see when their computer was manufactured. The information appears in the Regulatory Certification section of System Settings, restoring a detail that became difficult to access after Apple switched to randomized serial numbers.

To find the date, open System Settings, select General, and choose About. Click Regulatory Certification, located below the System Report button. A certificate will open with a Date of Manufacture field at the bottom.

Why Mac manufacture dates became harder to find

For years, Apple device serial numbers contained information that could be decoded to identify when and where a product was made. Apple began moving to randomized serial numbers in 2021, removing those manufacturing details from the serial number itself.

That change meant owners of newer Macs no longer had a similarly simple way to determine the production date. The newly visible certificate field provides an alternative without requiring users to interpret the serial number.

The date may refer to the logic board

The displayed date may not always represent the day the complete Mac was assembled. One user found that the date on the certificate appeared to match the machine’s logic board instead. The logic board in that Mac had previously been replaced, which suggests the manufacturing information may be associated with that component.

That distinction could matter when checking a refurbished Mac, reviewing a repair history, or comparing a computer’s apparent age with its original purchase date. The certificate’s date should therefore be treated as a useful manufacturing reference, rather than definitive proof of when the finished system left the factory.

When the feature became available

The Regulatory Certification section first appeared during the macOS 27 beta period. A forum member identified the new field, but Apple has not, to date, prominently highlighted the addition.

Users who have installed macOS 27 can check the certificate directly in System Settings. The feature is particularly useful for Macs released after Apple’s serial-number format changed, since those systems generally cannot reveal manufacturing details through serial-number decoding.