I've heard, casually, a few times that if you have to take unemployment insurance after you're 61 (male) then the 'payout' period is significantly longer.. (4 years ?)

Can anyone confirm ?

p.s. I'm thankfully neither unemployed nor that close to 61... but it would help with 'long term' planning

maybe they should just payout in full. it must be near impossible to get a job at that age.

Over 55 max payout is 520 day instead of 400 days so a full 2 years rather than 18 months

Can you get the AHV pension from 58 if you have no other income?

Yes it changed recently but pension will be substantially reduced.

After 61 does make a difference:
"Der Bundesrat kann für Versicherte, die innerhalb der letzten vier Jahre vor Erreichen des AHV-Rentenalters arbeitslos geworden sind und deren Vermittlung allgemein oder aus Gründen des Arbeitsmarktes unmöglich oder stark erschwert ist, den Anspruch um höchstens 120 Taggelder erhöhen und die Rahmenfrist für den Leistungsbezug um längstens zwei Jahre verlängern."

Since 520 days is 2 working years it won't make any difference to anyone who worked for 18 months in the last 2 years, just top up days for someone who only worked 12 months in 2 years. Or does it mean the Rahemnfrist becomes 4 years with just 120 days extra paid?

That wasn't my experience. As it turned out for me, the extension was not relevant for other reasons, but the verbal information from RAV was that I would have got longer had I been 61 rather than 59 at the time of first unemployment.