# Xcode 16.2 built Juce 8 app not running on Mac OS \< Big sur even with right target settings **URL:** \ **Category:** MacOSX and iOS\ **Created:** [November 10, 2025, 2:29pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547 "2025-11-10T14:29:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![soundforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@soundforce](https://forum.juce.com/u/soundforce)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 2:29pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/1 "2025-11-10T14:29:50Z")
Hello everybody! I spent the last day working my first Juce app 🙂 It’s a simple thing for firmware updates of my controllers. It has been a great learning process and it all works as I want. But I am having issues with running this app on Mac OS 10.15. When I am trying to run my application on a 10.15 Mac, it won’t run telling me that Big Sur is the minimum requirements. The context: - I am using Juce 8 - Development is made on Mac OS 15.1 with Xcode 16.2 (not much choices on the xcode version) What I checked/tried: - Added -Wl and -ld\_classic in the Extra Compiler Flags field - The Juce Mac OS Deployment Target is on 10.13 - I cross checked that in Xcode → Build Settings → Mac OS Deployment Target - As well as Xcode → General → Minimum Deployment Target - Made a new application project running only the hello world example → same problem - Tried the latest Juce 7 and an older version as well → same problem - I built the xcode project on said 10.15 Mac with Xcode 12.5 and Juce 8 → problem solved Of course I could keep developing the project on the old 10.15 Mac. But ideally I would keep developing on my modern M4 Mac :S Thanks in advance! ---
**Author:** ![aamf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/aamf/32/19941_2.png) [@aamf](https://forum.juce.com/u/aamf)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 3:35pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/2 "2025-11-10T15:35:07Z")
You could try using a Virtual Machine on your M4 Mac. VirtualBuddy seems perfect for this (but I haven’t tried it myself). EDIT: You can’t run macOS 10.15 Catalina on your M4 (not even within a VM), but you can run macOS 12, on which in turn Xcode 12.5.1 should run. > [@Nice, lightweight VM applications for testing](https://forum.juce.com/t/nice-lightweight-vm-applications-for-testing/55902): > > Just wanted to recommend a couple of applications I have been using for managing VMs for testing, making clean working environments, etc. Mac (M1 Monterey & up): [VirtualBuddy](https://github.com/insidegui/VirtualBuddy) Linux: [Virtual Machine Manager](https://virt-manager.org/) VirtualBuddy makes use of the new Mac M1 virtualization framework and is wonderful. It’s still very new, so you have to duplicate the VMs instead of going through a fully fledged snapshot utility. For this reason, it is best to run it on APFS (which is copy-on-write). However, it is super e… ---
**Author:** ![wavesequencer](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/wavesequencer/32/11659_2.png) [@wavesequencer](https://forum.juce.com/u/wavesequencer)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2025, 8:31am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/3 "2025-11-12T08:31:30Z")
Did you check if you have the build set to ‘My Mac’ or ‘Any Mac’? My Mac may result in building just for the current OS on your system - I’m not 100% sure.. but that does also definitely block building for x86 if you are on a Mac Silicon system. I’m building for targets as low as 10.13/Intel and when doing a release to customers I need to select ‘Any Mac’. ![Screenshot 2025-11-12 at 12.27.11 AM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/juce/original/3X/3/8/389413939a05bcfaabfa3e6312b7f9f2e71c5640.png) ---
**Author:** ![soundforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@soundforce](https://forum.juce.com/u/soundforce)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 10:00am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/4 "2025-11-13T10:00:02Z")
Thanks! I am going to try that. It seems nice and easy, it’s downloading the OS image right from the GUI. ---
**Author:** ![soundforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@soundforce](https://forum.juce.com/u/soundforce)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2025, 10:01am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/5 "2025-11-13T10:01:05Z")
Thanks, I tried it and it’s the same result, it won’t open in 10.15. ---
**Author:** ![yajdev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@yajdev](https://forum.juce.com/u/yajdev)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 9:47am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/6 "2026-04-22T09:47:24Z")
Hi @soundforce, did you eventually figure it out? We’re experiencing a similar issue I think. When built with Xcode 16, our app can no longer run on some older macOS computers due to missing symbols in the dynamically linked libc++. The minimum deployment target is also set correctly. ---
**Author:** ![soundforce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@soundforce](https://forum.juce.com/u/soundforce)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2026, 5:48pm UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/7 "2026-04-22T17:48:13Z")
No it didn’t. I guess it’s Apple forcing things and not necessarily because of Juce. But it sounds like you are having a different type of problem. I was having a Mac OS error notification when launching the app about the OS version being too old. I cannot remember the exact phrasing but it wasnt about symbols in libc++. Good luck! ---
**Author:** ![yajdev](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@yajdev](https://forum.juce.com/u/yajdev)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2026, 8:14am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/8 "2026-04-23T08:14:59Z")
Thank you for the reply! Sorry that you did not solve this situation… I’ll keep digging. ---
**Author:** ![PluginPenguin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.juce.com/pluginpenguin/32/10203_2.png) [@PluginPenguin](https://forum.juce.com/u/PluginPenguin)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2026, 11:19am UTC](https://forum.juce.com/t/xcode-16-2-built-juce-8-app-not-running-on-mac-os-big-sur-even-with-right-target-settings/67547/9 "2026-04-23T11:19:07Z")
I would recommend checking the generated binary. First simple check is: Is it even a universal binary? That can be tested with the `lipo -archs` command. If it does not output x86\_64, then you known that the actual problem is a non-universal build, not the actual deployment target. If that lists the right architectures, you can inspect the binary with ` otool -l` and look for the `LC_VERSION_MIN_MACOSX` entries, which at least for the x86\_64 slice should equal 10.13 in your case. You might find a second entry for the arm64 slice which if I remember correctly will report an 11.0 version since there were no ARM based macOS versions before that, so inspect the output carefully. Hope this will help you understanding the issue better