Sell a 27-inch Intel iMac: What to Expect

Expect £220 to £300 for a good 27-inch Intel iMac in 2026 - indicatively, £300 for a 2020 model and £220 for a 2019 - with faulty units at £90 to £130. Values are falling roughly 25 to 30 per cent a year now macOS support has ended, so selling sooner genuinely beats waiting.

We buy Apple Silicon Macs only - M1-generation and newer - so an Intel iMac is outside what we can quote; this guide covers what the market pays. See our Intel MacBook value guide too. If you have upgraded to an M1 or newer iMac, we buy that.

That is the honest picture, and honesty is the point of this article. Plenty of guides will tell you your old iMac is "still worth a fortune"; it is not, but it is worth real money today, and understanding exactly why the price is what it is will help you decide quickly rather than watch the number shrink.

What is your 27-inch iMac actually worth?

Indicative UK values in mid-2026, assuming good cosmetic condition and full working order:

Within each year, three things move the figure meaningfully. Storage type first: 2020 models shipped with SSDs as standard, which is a large part of why they out-price the 2019s, and a 2019 that was ordered with a genuine SSD instead of a Fusion Drive deserves - and gets - a premium. Second, the top processors: i9 (2019) and 10-core i7 (2020) builds attract buyers running older pro software that still lives happily on Intel. Third, the nano-texture glass option on the 2020: rare, sought after, and worth mentioning explicitly when you request a price.

RAM, unusually for a Mac, barely matters. The 27-inch has a user-accessible memory door, so buyers upgrade it themselves for pennies; your 40GB custom loadout sadly earns little over stock.

Why is the 5K display the reason your iMac is still worth anything?

Strip away the branding and a 27-inch iMac in 2026 is essentially a superb monitor with an ageing computer attached. That sounds unkind, but it is precisely what sustains the price: a 5K 27-inch panel of this quality still costs serious money to buy new - Apple's Studio Display starts at £1,499 - so a whole machine wrapped around a comparable panel for under £300 remains a rational purchase for a lot of people.

Who is actually buying these? Three groups keep demand alive. Budget-conscious buyers who want a gorgeous family or office computer for email, browsing and documents - tasks Intel handles fine even without updates. Tinkerers running Linux or OpenCore setups, for whom Apple's support cut-off is irrelevant. And a small trade in using target display techniques or panel transplants to repurpose the screen itself. None of these groups pays top dollar, but together they put a floor under the market that pure e-waste never has.

The corollary is worth stating plainly: on this machine, the display's condition is the valuation. A 27-inch iMac with a cracked or heavily marked panel loses most of what makes it desirable, which is why the gap between good and faulty prices is proportionally wider here than on Apple Silicon models.

Why does waiting cost you more with this iMac than any other?

Depreciation is not linear on end-of-support hardware - it accelerates. macOS Tahoe (2025) was the final release for any Intel Mac, and the 2019 iMac was already capped at earlier versions. Security updates for these systems wind down over the next year or two, and each milestone that passes takes a visible bite out of resale prices:

• Mid-2026 (now): £220 to £300 good. Browsers and major apps still support the installed macOS versions.
• Mid-2027 (projected): roughly £130 to £180 as security updates lapse and mainstream buyers drop away, leaving only the Linux and display-harvest crowd.
• 2028 and beyond: approaching the 21.5-inch Intel's current fate - sub-£100 territory where selling is more about responsible disposal than meaningful money.

We would rather tell you this than flatter you: if your 27-inch iMac is already boxed-up in a spare room, every month of storage costs you £5 to £10 in quiet depreciation. The best time to sell an Intel Mac was 2024; the second-best time is this week.

How do you sell one without carrying 9 kg anywhere?

A 27-inch iMac weighs about 8.9 kg bare and over 12 kg packaged - nobody should be hauling that to a Post Office counter. Look for a buyer that collects desktops by courier from your door: request a quote online with your model, year, spec and condition, get a fixed offer in writing, book a collection day, and hand the boxed machine to the driver. Shipping should be free and insured at full value in both directions - including the return journey if an offer is revised and you decline; some buyers charge to send your own computer back, so read the small print. Payment should follow by bank transfer once the iMac passes inspection.

Two preparation notes specific to older iMacs. First, wiping: there is no Erase All Content and Settings shortcut on these machines, so you will need the Recovery Mode route - restart holding Command-R, use Disk Utility to erase Macintosh HD, then reinstall macOS - and before any of that, sign out of iCloud to release Activation Lock. Second, packing: the 27-inch is the single most demanding Mac to box safely, so follow the desktop steps in our guide to how to sell an iMac in the UK and pad the screen corners generously; corner impacts cause almost all transit cracks.

Should you sell it faulty, fix it, or strip it for parts?

Sell it faulty. Repairing a 2019 or 2020 iMac to boost its sale price almost never pays. A replacement panel costs more than the working machine is worth; a logic board repair runs £150 to £250 against a value uplift of perhaps £130. Declare it honestly as faulty, take the £90 to £130, and let a refurbisher with trade parts pricing do the economics you cannot. If the machine has multiple failures - dead board and damaged glass - it still is not worthless to a refurbisher; our guide to selling a broken MacBook or Mac explains how faults are priced (on the M2-and-newer Macs we buy, the quote is instant and no photographs are required).

Do not part it out unless dismantling adhesive-sealed displays is your hobby. Opening a 27-inch iMac requires cutting the foam adhesive around the panel; one slip cracks the glass and deletes most of the machine's remaining value. The £30 you might gain selling RAM sticks separately is not worth the risk.

What is the bottom line for 27-inch owners?

Your iMac is in its final window of meaningful value. The panel that made it magnificent in 2019 is still doing all the work in 2026, holding a fading platform above the £200 line - but that window closes on a schedule set by security updates, not by you. Get a written quote from a buyer that still takes Intel desktops while the 5K display commands a premium, and put the proceeds toward a machine Apple will support into the 2030s - and when that M2-or-newer iMac is eventually replaced in turn, it is one we buy: sell your iMac.