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What USB-C Adapter do I need for my Mac?

What USB-C Adapter do I need for my Mac?

If you have an iMac, MacBook or Mac mini from 2017 or newer you may find you need a hub or adapter to allow you to connect older USB-A devices or ports such as SD Cards, Ethernet or HDMI. Here is what we recommend and why.

 

Apple Adapters - The Official Option

Apple offers a range of adapters that are high quality and assured to work correctly with your Mac. The catch is they are *very* expensive and lacking somewhat in flexibility, for example there are no adapter that will allow you to connect more than one USB-A device.

 

Third Party Adapters - Endorsed by Apple

Apple also offers some high quality third party adapters on their website. These offer greater flexibility than the options above, for example this Belkin adapter allows you to connect four USB-A devices to a single USB-C port and this Satechi adapter allows you to connect the Mac charger, HDMI, USB-A and an SD Card into a single USB-C port. Both of these adapters allow you to connect multiple devices, whereas the Apple options would require more than one adapter to do the same job.

Third Party Adapters - Third Party Sellers

Now, Apple doesn’t  own the USB-C standard so there are a huge range of manufacturers out there making USB-C adapters and hubs at lower prices and with even greater flexibility than above. The catch is that some third party adapters are not manufactured to the correct standards and are known to cause damage. Apple even went as far to release an update to macOS to help prevent these non-compliant hubs from causing damage. It is important to note that the update only applies to MacBook Pro 2019 and newer and MacBook Air 2020 and newer, older devices will still be vulnerable even with this newer version of macOS.

It is important to make sure you buy an adapter or hub from a good quality manufacturer that ensures that their adapters are built to the correct specification. This can be a bit of a minefield, especially when looking on somewhere like Amazon. We have tested a few different brands of adapters and can highly recommend the following,


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