Apple ended its AirPort, AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule product lines in 2016 and officially exited the router business in 2018. Now in 2025, the company is effectively signaling that one of the last remaining benefits of its networking hardware will be disabled next year.
Per @StellaFudge on X, Apple’s forthcoming macOS Tahoe 26 operating system includes a warning message when using Time Machine to back up a Mac to Apple router-connected storage. The message states that the upcoming operating system will no longer support AirPort Disk, or other Time Capsule disks, for Time Machine backups.
Until 2016, Apple’s AirPort Extreme device offered internal storage for Time Machine backups called Time Capsule. Each product could also connect to a USB drive for Time Machine backups. With the advent of macOS Tahoe 26, which was announced at WWDC on Monday and released as a developer beta, the beta offering support for backups to these devices, it seems as if the macOS version, due to be announced in June 2026 and released next year, will lose support for accessing these devices and Time Machine backup archives.
Online and network-attached storage (NAS) solutions offer a way to continue using Time Machine for wireless backups over the local network, even if this is a bit of bad news for fans of Apple’s AirPort product line.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via 9to5Mac and @StellaFudge