13 Disappearing Laptop Ports and How to Get Them Back

Apple recently kicked over a hornet’s nest filled with dongles when it unveiled a pair of iPhones that do away with the 3.5-mm audio jack. Unfortunately, in their zeal to save money and make their systems ever thinner, notebook vendors have also removed a lot of important connectors. Other technologies, like FireWire connectors, are just too obsolete for manufacturers to support, but if you still have devices that use them, you don’t care how old they are.

If you buy a new laptop today, you can rest assured that it will work with your old headphones, but there’s a good chance it won’t work with your camera’s memory cards, wired office network or backup drive out of the box. The bleeding-edge 12-inch MacBook has only a single USB Type-C port to go with its audio jack, while the business-friendly Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon has room for three USB ports but eschews the Ethernet connection you need in many offices.

To help you stay connected, we’ve detailed some of the most important ports (or drives) you might be missing and how to get them back with the right adapters.