Another Year, Another Xcode/macOS Warning

Don’t install macOS Tahoe on a machine that needs to be able to run prior versions of Xcode!

Much like I did last year, I installed macOS Tahoe in order to explore the AI-based generative code capabilities of Xcode 26, only to once again find that earlier versions of Xcode are now prevented from running.

Clicking on the Xcode-1630 icon in the toolbar will end up presenting the following dialog.

Image by author

Nor can you open the application using the “Open” option from the context menu.

Frustrating, but I expected as much going in, since this was an issue with Xcode 16/Sequoia and Xcode 14/Sonoma as well.

Workarounds

There’s a potential workaround where you can use Terminal and/or a Shortcut to launch an older version.

open /Applications/Xcode-1630.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode

The above has Xcode-1530 as the app name, but you’ll probably need to change it accordingly to match your naming pattern on your machine.

You can also create a Shortcut shell script to make the process easier.