macOS Ventura is the last release for Macs with Apple T1 Security chip. macOS Ventura officially supports Macs with Apple silicon and Intel's Skylake-based Xeon-W and 7th-generation Kaby Lake chips or later, and drops support for Macs released from 2015 to 2016, officially marking the end of support for the Retina MacBook Pro, 2015-2017 MacBook Air, 2014 Mac Mini, 2015 iMac and cylindrical Mac Pro. The 2016 MacBook Pro is also dropped, however, the operating system can be installed and run using OpenCore because all required drivers for T1 system are present (drivers are removed in macOS Sonoma). The 21.5 inch 2017 iMac is the only supported standard configuration model to have no Retina display.

Macs that support macOS Ventura are as follows.

• iMac (2017 or later)
• iMac Pro (2017)
• MacBook (2017)
• MacBook Air (2018 or later)
• MacBook Pro (2017 or later)
• Mac Mini (2018 or later)
• Mac Pro (2019 or later)
• Mac Studio (all models)

AirPlay to Mac, always-on "Hey Siri", 4K HDR streaming, and Spatial Audio are not supported on all models. Offline dictation, Live Captions, Portrait Mode in FaceTime, and "Reference mode" (which allows users to use an iPad as a secondary reference monitor) only work on Apple silicon Macs.

By using patch tools, macOS Ventura can be unofficially installed on earlier models that are officially unsupported, such as a 2017 MacBook Air and a 2015 MacBook Pro. Using these methods, it is possible to install macOS Ventura on models as early as a 2008 MacBook Pro or a 2007 iMac (after a Penryn CPU upgrade).

macOS Ventura includes changes, many related to productivity, and adds two apps from iOS and iPadOS: Weather and Clock. Freeform was added in an update to all three operating systems.

• Stage Manager, which provides an alternative interface for multitasking, in addition to the previous Mission Control.

• Weather: shows detailed weather forecasts. Clicking on the Weather widget now opens this app, not The Weather Channel's website.
• Clock: displays world time and manages alarms, stopwatches, and timers. Clicking on the Clock widget now opens this app, not the Date & Time section of System Preferences.
• Freeform: a whiteboard app that supports real-time collaboration. It was only added in version 13.1.

• Mail adds "send later" and "undo send" options and includes improvements to search, email organization, and formatting.
• Spotlight produces richer search results; with Live Text, it can return pictures that contain the queried text.
• Safari adds Shared Tab Groups and Passkeys, uses WebAuthn for password-less account management, gets a redesigned sidebar, and gains AVIF support.
• Messages now allows the user to edit and unsend recent iMessages, similar to iOS 16 and iPadOS 16.
• FaceTime gets Handoff, the ability to transfer a call between multiple Apple devices.
• Continuity Camera, a feature that allows a user's iPhone to wirelessly serve as a front-facing camera, with support for Desk View on some iPhones.
• System Preferences is renamed to System Settings and gets a brand new tabbed interface and re-organized panes based on the iOS/iPadOS Settings app. Because of this, the app-specific "Preferences..." menu bar item has been renamed "Settings..." for all apps.
• Photos app: iCloud Shared Photo Library allows multiple members of iCloud Family Sharing to add, edit, and delete photos in the same photo library.
• The Game Center dashboard is redesigned.
• Font Book gets a new visual design.
• Maps adds support for routes with multiple stops.
• Siri gets redesigned to match its appearance since iOS 14 and iPadOS 14.
• Apple Music adds the ability for the user to mark artists as "favorites" and receive new music notifications from those artists.
• Print dialogs have been redesigned. Many users report that Print Presets no longer save all essential printer features (paper type, duplexing, color mode, print quality, etc.) requiring settings to be manually selected with every print job.
• Ability to play ambient background sounds as an accessibility feature in System Settings.
• New backgrounds and screensavers.
• A bug was fixed in Disk Utility concerning the verification of Time Machine backup volumes.
• Improved game controller support.
• Apple's Virtualization framework: better support for multitouch gestures in macOS Ventura VMs, support for graphics acceleration, folder sharing, and Rosetta 2 in Linux VMs.
• Metal 3, with support for spatial and temporal image upscaling.
• Live Text now works in videos.
• About This Mac tab was updated. It now shows an image of the device you are using and shows less information, it also gives you an option to go to System Settings to see more info about your Mac.
• iCloud
• Advanced Data Protection: optional end-to-end encryption for all iCloud data except emails, calendars and contacts.
• Support for physical security keys
• Security
• Rapid Security Response, a new update mechanism to rapidly patch security vulnerabilities without having to install a full system update; according to Apple, these patches will not require a reboot.
• New Login Items section in System Settings (in the General pane), which shows all programs that start on boot (including all LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons for both the user and the system). In previous versions of macOS, the Login Items list in the "Users & Groups" pane only showed programs that registered themselves to be displayed, and most malware would not have been listed.
• Confirmation before allowing data connections with USB-C accessories, to prevent malicious USB-C chargers from installing malware.
• Gatekeeper now checks the notarization of third-party apps every time they are launched.
• Lockdown Mode, which prevents USB devices from connecting when the Mac is asleep, blocks the installation of MDM profiles, limits the risk of malicious attachments in the Messages app, and removes just-in-time compilation for JavaScript in Safari.
• Built-in apps cannot be moved from the cryptographically verified Signed System Volume to another location where they could be tampered with.

• The Preview app on Mac no longer supports PostScript (.ps) and Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) files. Printing of such files, to a printer natively supporting PostScript, remains possible by accessing the Printer Queue from System Settings and dragging the file into the queue window.
• Network Utility has been removed.
• The Network Locations feature was removed from the graphical user interface. It can still be accessed from the command line.
• Help files related to dial-up modems have been removed.
• Schedule Shutdown, Restart and Boot have been removed from the graphical user interface. They can still be accessed from the command line.
• Support for USB 1.1 accessories is removed.