If you installed macOS 27 Golden Gate, here's a way to find out when your Mac was manufactured. Apple has restored access to information that effectively disappeared when it randomized its serial numbers a few years ago.
On your Mac, go to System Settings ➝ General ➝ About, then click "Regulatory Certification" under the System Report button. The certificate will show with a new "Date of Manufacture" field at the bottom.
You used to be able to decode the serial number on an Apple device to find out when and where it was made. That changed in 2021, when Apple began adopting randomized serial numbers without encoded manufacturing details.
That left owners of newer Macs with no similarly straightforward way to determine when their machine was made – until macOS 27 arrived.
The spot was made by MacRumors forum member pdfu. Another forum member said that the displayed date they saw on their certificate corresponded to their Mac's logic board rather than the date the complete machine was assembled. That logic board had been replaced though, suggesting that's where the date of manufacture is stored.
The regulatory certification first appeared during the macOS 27 beta cycle and it hasn't, to our knowledge, been highlighted by Apple.
Top Rated Comments
Too bad it requires an upgrade to Golden Gate, and that Apple has not included it in the point release updates for Sequoia, Tahoe and so on.
My 2023 M2: