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My husband just gave me his commercial grade iMac 21". I was going to upgrade from High Sierra to at least Catalina but from what I've seen, I can't do it because it's too old. Is that correct?

According to Mactracker, High Sierra is the latest OS that can run on a Late 2009 21.5 iMac...

Hi Artie:

That's what I was afraid of. I may not be able to pay bills on it via my bank and it gave me problems before I upgraded to Catalina. Maybe it was a glitch. I'll find out next time I pay a bill. It's only for my bill paying anyway. It has a lot of goodies that were taken out in later models but I don't use those goodies i.e. garage band, iMovie. Since it's commercial it also has a bunch of Word Microsoft products on it, too.

Would it make sense to download Catalina or higher onto a flash drive and use it in there or would that be impossible since I can't even upgrade it? I'm not sure how all the works. It's got 500gigs of storage!

The machine can't boot any version of OS X/macOS later than High Sierra from either an internal or external drive, Rita.

I don't think you're correct about those "goodies." GarageBand and iMovie, for example, are still included in macOS.

Thanks for the sad info! I looked at my apps in finder and there is no garage band in my apps. As far as iMovie it doesn't show the normal icon in Finder, just a folder which looks like this when opened. iMovie

I did buy the MacBook refurnished. Maybe they took out the Garage Band and maybe some other stuff. I don't use it so I wouldn't have noticed.

I've got no idea about your iMovie, but it sure doesn't look like I'd imagine it would.

I don't remember if there's a sequence of events, but those apps aren't in my apps folder. However, if I log in to the App Store they appear as available for d/l.

Right, I saw them for download too. But I remember when they came with the Mac. Also, there is a CD ROM should I need it and an ethernet port which both disappeared with newer models, at least with laptops.

Thinking about it, with disc drives having gone the way of the dinosaurs, getting the iApps from the App Store is the logical progression from getting them from a CD ROM, and a less expensive solution than including them in OS installers. (Thinking of that CD ROM reminds me of my 2002 iBook G3, which came with - I think it was - 17 CDs, including two blank Verbatim discs.) Unless I'm mistaken, the iApps went from that freestanding CD to installed along with the OS to App Store d/l's.

There may be a high-end Mac or two that still have Ethernet ports, but for most of us, they've been unavailable other than via adaptors for I dunno how many years now.

Just an aside, FWIW: the Mac mini still comes with an Ethernet port.

The iMovie screen shot you show is the Installer Package for iMovie. If you double-click the box icon, it will install the version of iMovie indicated in the package icon name. I don't know if that is the latest version for available for that OS. On my Catalina OS iMovie shows 10.2.5.

Regarding CD roms, I just meant I could watch a movie or listen to music. I didn't expect Apple to give me a CD for anything.

I'm also running 10.15.7, and the App Store shows iMovie 10.3.1 as having been available for a month...10.3 for a month prior to that.

Oh, I thought you were referring back to the days when the iLife apps came independently of the OS on a CD labeled "Additional Software" (or something along those lines).

Should you ever need iMovie, you'll want to d/l the latest version from the App Store, because your version 9.x is over 6 years old.

The App Store also notes that iMovie 10.3.x requires MacOS 11.x or later; later than Catalina.

Specifically, 11.5.1.   I missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.

More: Thinking back, I misread "Compatibility: Works on this MacBook Pro" as meaning "as it stands," rather than "[Will work...] after it's upgraded," i.e. I didn't click on the disclosure arrow.

Poor presentation on Apple's part.