A Macintosh clone is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc.The earliest Mac clones were based on emulators and reverse-engineered Macintosh ROMs.During Apple's short lived Mac OS 7 licensing program authorized Mac clone makers were able to either purchase 100% compatible motherboards or build their own hardware using licensed Mac reference. Choose 'Reinstall Mac OS X' That's it. When my computer restarted I was prompted for my Apple ID credentials and then my user loaded like normal, with a working Terminal, even. I didn't need to reinstall / restore anything. The whole process (including the user folder backup) took about 45 min. FileVault Mac OS not being enabled. The issue: I am trying to enable FileVault encryption for Mac OS for one particular user (E3 license) and when I configure the policy in the 1st location, assign it to a security group, the policy is not getting applied at all.
Download macOS Catalina for an all‑new entertainment experience. Your music, TV shows, movies, podcasts, and audiobooks will transfer automatically to the Apple Music, Apple TV, Apple Podcasts, and Apple Books apps where you’ll still have access to your favorite iTunes features, including purchases, rentals, and imports.
You can always download iTunes 12.8 for previous versions of macOS,
as well as the iTunes application for Windows.
Hardware:
Software:
The latest entertainment apps now come installed with macOS Catalina. Upgrade today to get your favorite music, movies, TV shows, and podcasts. You can join Apple Music and stream — or download and play offline — over 75 million songs, ad‑free.
Hardware:
Software:
Visit the iTunes Store on iOS to buy and download your favorite songs, TV shows, movies, and podcasts. You can also download macOS Catalina for an all-new entertainment experience on desktop. Your library will transfer automatically to the new Apple Music app, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts. And you’ll still have access to your favorite iTunes features, including your previous iTunes Store purchases, rentals, and imports and the ability to easily manage your library.
iTunes forever changed the way people experienced music, movies, TV shows, and podcasts. It all changes again with three all-new, dedicated apps — Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts — each designed from the ground up to be the best way to enjoy entertainment on your Mac. And rest assured; everything you had in your iTunes library is still accessible in each app. iCloud seamlessly syncs everything across your devices — or you can back up, restore, and sync by connecting the device directly to your Mac.
The new Apple Music app is the ultimate music streaming experience on Mac.1 Explore a library of over 75 million songs, discover new artists and tracks, find the perfect playlist, download and listen offline, or enjoy all the music you’ve collected over the years. And find it all in your music library on all your devices.
The Apple TV app for Mac is the new home for all your favorite movies, shows, premium channels, and Apple TV+. Watch everything directly in the app or enjoy it offline, and discover the best of what’s on in the Watch Now tab. You can even pick up where you left off on any screen, across all your devices. And for the first time, 4K2 and Dolby Atmos3-supported movies are available on Mac.
More than 700,000 of the best entertainment, comedy, news, and sports shows are now available on your Mac with Apple Podcasts. Search for podcasts by title, topic, guest, host, content, and more. Subscribe and be notified as soon as new episodes become available. And in the Listen Now tab, you can easily pick up where you left off across all your devices.
Get help with syncing, updating to a more recent version of iTunes, or with an iTunes Store purchase — and much more.
Learn moreDownload earlier versions of iTunes to work with compatible operating systems and hardware.
Find previous versions of iTunes So, you’ve decided to download an older version of Mac OS X. There are many reasons that could point you to this radical decision. To begin with, some of your apps may not be working properly (or simply crash) on newer operating systems. Also, you may have noticed your Mac’s performance went down right after the last update. Finally, if you want to run a parallel copy of Mac OS X on a virtual machine, you too will need a working installation file of an older Mac OS X. Further down we’ll explain where to get one and what problems you may face down the road.
We’ll be repeatedly referring to these Apple OS versions below, so it’s good to know the basic macOS timeline.
Cheetah 10.0 | Puma 10.1 | Jaguar 10.2 |
Panther 10.3 | Tiger 10.4 | Leopard 10.5 |
Snow Leopard 10.6 | Lion 10.7 | Mountain Lion 10.8 |
Mavericks 10.9 | Yosemite 10.10 | El Capitan 10.11 |
Sierra 10.12 | High Sierra 10.13 | Mojave 10.14 |
Catalina 10.15 |
Given your Mac isn’t new and is filled with data, you will probably need enough free space on your Mac. This includes not just space for the OS itself but also space for other applications and your user data. One more argument is that the free space on your disk translates into virtual memory so your apps have “fuel” to operate on. The chart below tells you how much free space is needed.
Note, that it is recommended that you install OS on a clean drive. Next, you will need enough disk space available, for example, to create Recovery Partition. Here are some ideas to free up space on your drive:
Go to Finder > All My Files > Arrange by size
Then you can move your space hoggers onto an external drive or a cloud storage.
If you aren’t comfortable with cleaning the Mac manually, there are some nice automatic “room cleaners”. Our favorite is CleanMyMac as it’s most simple to use of all. It deletes system junk, old broken apps, and the rest of hidden junk on your drive.
Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.4 - 10.8 (free version)
Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.9 (free version)
Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.10 - 10.14 (free version)
Normally, it is assumed that updating OS is a one-way road. That’s why going back to a past Apple OS version is problematic. The main challenge is to download the OS installation file itself, because your Mac may already be running a newer version. If you succeed in downloading the OS installation, your next step is to create a bootable USB or DVD and then reinstall the OS on your computer.
If you once had purchased an old version of Mac OS X from the App Store, open it and go to the Purchased tab. There you’ll find all the installers you can download. However, it doesn’t always work that way. The purchased section lists only those operating systems that you had downloaded in the past. But here is the path to check it:
This method allows you to download Mavericks and Yosemite by logging with your Apple ID — only if you previously downloaded them from the Mac App Store.
If you are signed with an Apple Developer account, you can get access to products that are no longer listed on the App Store. If you desperately need a lower OS X version build, consider creating a new Developer account among other options. The membership cost is $99/year and provides a bunch of perks unavailable to ordinary users.
Nevertheless, keep in mind that if you visit developer.apple.com/downloads, you can only find 10.3-10.6 OS X operating systems there. Newer versions are not available because starting Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.7, the App Store has become the only source of updating Apple OS versions.
You can purchase a boxed or email version of past Mac OS X directly from Apple. Both will cost you around $20. For the reason of being rather antiquated, Snow Leopard and earlier Apple versions can only be installed from DVD.
Buy a boxed edition of Snow Leopard 10.6
Get an email copy of Lion 10.7
Get an email copy of Mountain Lion 10.8
The email edition comes with a special download code you can use for the Mac App Store. Note, that to install the Lion or Mountain Lion, your Mac needs to be running Snow Leopard so you can install the newer OS on top of it.
If you are wondering if you can run El Capitan on an older Mac, rejoice as it’s possible too. But before your Mac can run El Capitan it has to be updated to OS X 10.6.8. So, here are main steps you should take:
1. Install Snow Leopard from install DVD.
2. Update to 10.6.8 using Software Update.
3. Download El Capitan here.
If you have a newer Mac, there is no physical option to install Mac OS versions older than your current Mac model. For instance, if your MacBook was released in 2014, don’t expect it to run any OS released prior of that time, because older Apple OS versions simply do not include hardware drivers for your Mac.
But as it often happens, workarounds are possible. There is still a chance to download the installation file if you have an access to a Mac (or virtual machine) running that operating system. For example, to get an installer for Lion, you may ask a friend who has Lion-operated Mac or, once again, set up a virtual machine running Lion. Then you will need to prepare an external drive to download the installation file using OS X Utilities.
After you’ve completed the download, the installer should launch automatically, but you can click Cancel and copy the file you need. Below is the detailed instruction how to do it.
The following method allows you to download Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.
Now the OS should start downloading automatically onto the external drive. After the download is complete, your Mac will prompt you to do a restart, but at this point, you should completely shut it down. Now that the installation file is “captured” onto your external drive, you can reinstall the OS, this time running the file on your Mac.
Locate InstallESD.dmg disk image file — this is the file you need to reinstall Lion OS X. The same steps are valid for Mountain Lion and Mavericks.
If your Mac runs macOS Sierra 10.12 or macOS High Sierra 10.13, it is possible to revert it to the previous system if you are not satisfied with the experience. You can do it either with Time Machine or by creating a bootable USB or external drive.
Instruction to downgrade from macOS Sierra
Instruction to downgrade from macOS High Sierra
Instruction to downgrade from macOS Mojave
Instruction to downgrade from macOS Catalina
Before you do it, the best advice is to back your Mac up so your most important files stay intact. In addition to that, it makes sense to clean up your Mac from old system junk files and application leftovers. The easiest way to do it is to run CleanMyMac X on your machine (download it for free here).
If none of the options to get older OS X worked, pay a visit to nearest local Apple Store. They should have image installations going back to OS Leopard and earlier. You can also ask their assistance to create a bootable USB drive with the installation file. So here you are. We hope this article has helped you to download an old version of Mac OS X. Below are a few more links you may find interesting.