Ding Dong Apple Support: Community Forum Shuts Nov. 20
Apple will permanently close its Apple Support Community forum on November 20, 2026. The user-to-user help site, which began in 1998, no longer takes new posts and is read-only. Apple points users to its official Apple Support site and says the decision followed a strategy review.
Apple will permanently close its Apple Support Community, a user-to-user help forum, on November 20, 2026, and has already stopped accepting new posts. The site is now read-only.
Apple posted a notice on the site. "The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026," it reads. The notice says users can "continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site."
What changes for users
Until the closing date, people can still read old threads. They cannot ask questions, reply or start new discussions.
Apple has not said whether the archive will stay online after November 20. Anyone who relies on a saved answer may want to note the fix elsewhere before then.
The notice ends with thanks to the members who "contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products."
Why Apple says it acted
Apple said it decided to sunset the forum after a careful evaluation of strategy and customer needs. It gave no further reasoning.
The company did not announce the change ahead of time. The notice went up on the site itself, with the posting freeze taking effect the same day.
Nearly three decades of forums
Apple has run some form of online discussion board since 1998, when it launched the Apple Tech Exchange. In 2000 the forums became Apple Discussions. In 2011 they were renamed the Apple Support Communities.
The current name, Apple Support Community, arrived in 2022. The forum is 28 years old, counting from the Tech Exchange launch.
A mixed reputation
Not everyone will mourn it. Writing about the closure, one longtime Apple commentator called the boards an embarrassment. He argued they felt out of step with the modern web.
Because the forum sat on an apple.com domain, he said, it ranked highly in search results. Many people therefore assumed it was an official source of help, which it was not.
He also criticized the quality of answers. Many threads, he wrote, ended with questions unanswered or shut down by high-ranking users more interested in earning points in the forum's ranking system than in solving the problem.
Apple's own advice is to turn to the official Apple Support site. The forum closes for good on November 20, 2026.
