When we released Witch 4 in March of 2017 (after a public beta that began in October of 2016), we made the decision to leave Witch 3 in the Mac App Store—Witch 4 can’t be in the store, because it cannot be sandboxed.

We left Witch 3 in place mainly to keep the exposure of Witch to those searching the App Store for app switchers and utilities. But we know that it’s not fair to pay for old outdated tech, so we included a free license for Witch 4 for anyone who wanted to move to the new Witch (though doing so meant leaving the Mac App Store for future updates).

With the release of Catalina, though, we’ve decided to remove Witch 3 from the Mac App Store, effective today. Why? Because Witch 3 is 32-bit code, and it will not run in macOS Catalina. Unfortunately, the App Store will lie about this if you look at the Witch 3 listing in the Mac App Store…

This screenshot is from my MacBook Air, which is running Catalina:

We have no control over the system requirements, and we do not like that we’re potentially deceiving customers (even though they’d get a free Witch 4 license, they may not understand that, and feel ripped off).

In addition, it’s been three years since we released Witch 4, which is a very generous “sunset period” for the prior release. Hence, it’s time for Witch 3 to retire from the Mac App Store.

How to get your free Witch 4 license

If you bought Witch 3 from the Mac App Store after October 1st, 2016, and would like to get your free Witch 4 license, start by downloading our Crossgrade Assistant. Launch it, and you’ll see a standard “file open” dialog. Navigate to the Applications folder, select Witch, then click the “Choose App or Receipt File” button. If all goes well, you’ll see this dialog…

Fill that form with your name and a valid email address—that’s where your license file information will be sent—then click Submit. You’ll then receive an email with a license file download link; download the license file and make a backup somewhere.

If you haven’t done so already, download and install Witch 4, then double-click the license file you downloaded earlier. You should now be a licensed Witch 4 user.

If you have any troubles with the process—or no longer have Witch 3 installed but believe you’re qualified for the free Witch 4 license—just open a trouble ticket and we’ll get it figured out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 16th, 2019 at 10:02 am by Rob Griffiths, and is filed under Mac App Store, Products, Witch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.