Install Unsupported Mac Os

  1. How to install Big Sur on an unsupported Mac. First you will need to obtain the installation files for the operating system. You'll have to obtain these using a compatible Mac.
  2. It is better than macOS 10.15, Catalina, due to its powerful improvement and new features. However, Apple dropped various Mac versions, making installation of macOS 11 on unsupported Macs almost impossible. In this article, you will learn about the compatible devices and how to install macOS 11 on older Mac or unsupported devices.
  3. Aug 13, 2021 Part 3: How to Install macOS Big Sur on an Unsupported Mac. Before the installation, make sure that you take a backup of your Mac on an external hard disk as you will lose all your data when you install the new operating system. There are several backup software like Time Machine, iCloud, Dropbox, and many more.

OS X El Capitan (10.11) on Unsupported Macs macOS Extractor and MacPostFactor are apps that guide you through patching and installing OS X El Capitan (10.11), Yosemite (10.10), Mavericks (10.9), or Mountain Lion (10.8) on your older Mac. This thread focuses on OS X El Capitan. In this video I have my lastest walkthrough guide in how to install macOS 10.15 Catalina on an unsupported Mac. Using dosdude1 Patcher; I have successfully i.

In this post, we will learn How to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac. macOS Catalina is the most innovative variant of the macOS that came within our palms on October 7, 2019. The debut of Catalina occurred in WWDC 2019. The general public beta of macOS Catalina was outside afterward in July 2019. Apple introduced Catalina with amazing features and amazing wallpapers by describing macOS Catalina is a great listener, and she can know you better than anyone. Catalina additionally has a Time-Shifting desktop, which turns light into dark or dark to light based on your time zone.

Here is how to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac.

Some helpful links:
How to Speed Up macOS Catalina? 7 Easy Methods
How To Download Macos Catalina Vmware & Virtualbox Image – Latest Version
Download macOS Big Sur VMware & VirtualBox Image – Latest Version
How to share folders on VirtualBox & Vmware? (Windows-MAC) Step by Step Guide

macOS Catalina

Catalina’s complete variant was down to October 7th, 2019. Once Catalina was totally out, there were lots of new things and also as many problems. I personally utilize macOS Catalina, and I enjoy it very much and don’t have any issue with it, except it is difficult to locate things. But, there are lots of features and updates I haven’t still touched off.

With the support of Catalyst, you can use macOS and iPadOS simultaneously. Apple has made so many new updates and features that let us edit our photos and videos like a pro editor. Many people adore Catalina, and people like to utilize macOS Catalina not merely by Mac consumers but also by Windows and other operating platform users. Within the following guide, I will demonstrate how to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac.

The most recent upgrades happened in macOS Catalina on March 24, 2020. Because of this upgrade, changes came into Screen Time Communication Limits, a characteristic brought to the iPhone in the iOS 13.3 upgrade, it includes iCloud Folder Sharing, and it brings a fresh Head Pointer Access option that enables the cursor to be controlled together with head movements using Mac’s camera. We’ll find out how to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac.

How To Install macOS Big Sur On VMware On Windows?
How To Install macOS Big Sur On VirtualBox On Windows?
How to Speed Up macOS Catalina? 7 Easy Methods

Is your mac in Your Unsupported List?

macOS Catalina is amazing, but when users can not utilize it, then it makes no sense to know it. From a while ago, Apple was cutting and creating the harmonious Macs list bigger for their new variants, and this list can be applied to Catalina. As Apple is rolling more versions, they are cutting more old Macs from the list. The list of jobless Mac is getting larger and is already too large. Maybe that is because Apple needs more users to buy their brand new products rather than using their older ones.

Considering that the list of unsupported Macs has increased now, some run Mojave users can not set up macOS Catalina. Based on Apple, they said, we’re decreasing the amount of Mac supports because old Macs don’t have enough capacity and metallic graphics processors. Based on Apple, they stated, we are accountable for all of the older mac users that can’t encounter MacOS Catalina within their Mac. Not everyone can afford to have a new Mac every year, and Macs aren’t cheap also. Don’t worry. We’re likely to show you how you can install macOS Catalina on unsupported Mac.

Before heading to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac, check out the unsupported collection of all Macs and if your Mac is from the unsupported list.

Here are the list of unsupported Mac.

Early-2008 or newer Mac Pro, iMac, or MacBook Pro:
MacPro3,1
MacPro4,1
MacPro5,1
iMac8,1
iMac9,1
iMac10,x
iMac11,x (systems using AMD Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx series GPUs will likely soon be almost unusable when conducting Catalina.)
IMac12,x (systems with AMD Radeon HD 5xxx and 6xxx series GPUs will likely soon be nearly unusable when conducting Catalina.)
MacBookPro4,1
MacBookPro5,x
MacBookPro6,x
MacBookPro7,x
MacBookPro8,x
Late-2008 or newer MacBook Air or Aluminum Unibody MacBook:
MacBookAir2,1
MacBookAir3,x
MacBookAir4,x
MacBook5,1
Early-2009 or newer Mac Mini or snowy MacBook:
Macmini3,1
Macmini4,1
Macmini5,x (systems using AMD Radeon HD 6xxx series GPUs will probably be almost unusable when running Catalina.)
MacBook5,2
MacBook6,1
MacBook7,1
Early-2008 or newer Xserve:
Xserve2,1
Xserve3,1


When you have checked and found out your Mac is on the unsupported list, measure to the next step, which is to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac.

Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac: What We Need?

Before you proceed forward, here are the things you’ll need for this particular process.

16GB USB Drive
DosDude Catalina Patcher
macOS Catalina File
Backup Mac

Once that’s with you, let’s dive into the best and easiest way to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac.

Backup Your Mac

Before installing any operating system, you must choose to backup your computer fully. We recommend backing up your apparatus. If anything else goes wrong and you hadn’t backed up your apparatus, everything will be deleted. However, if you’d backed up your device, you can restore that. Here are the measures.

First, in the event you wish to replicate, Time Machine Backup can allow you to get it done without deleting some of your folders.

Connect an external hard disk or a USB having a small space.

On the top left corner of your display, click the Apple icon. Proceed to the dropdown menu and Choose System Preference.

By clicking Time Machine, you can earn a machine that will back up your device.

Choose your copy and click Backup.

With that completed, we’ll start the procedure and how to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac.

How To Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac

After checking your Mac, if your Mac is in the brand new list, installing macOS Catalina marginally with no tool and measures is possible. If your Mac is unsupported, follow the steps below.

Once the application is there, open it. Click Continue.

macOS Catalina Patcher

That being said, if you have the macOS Catalina copy, click Browse to get a backup. If you don’t, pick Download a copy.

macOS Installer App

With this window, click Start Download.

Download macOS

Once it’s finished, insert the USB and click on ”Create a Bootable Installer.”

Setup System

Let the process finish and once it’s done, take out the USB. After a few minutes, then insert the USB again, then reboot into the Mac.

When powering on, hold the Option key for a while until the startup manager appears. Following the Startup Manager opens, click on the USB Drive with the Aid of arrow keys.

Within this stage, choose Disk Utility and then click Continue.

macOS Utilities

If you have completed the previous steps correctly, you’re now in the Disk Utility window. To format your inner drive with APFS format, select the drive, and click Erase. When you’re done, close the window.

Erase Disk

Wait for the window and choose Reinstall macOS to initiate the setup.

macOS Utilities

Click Continue with the straightforward installation wizard and also about the install window, then choose the appropriate disk and click on Install. It might require some while. And you will observe many orders going up and down.

Click on the Force Cache Rebuild option and click on Restart.

Welcome

By this step, you will see macOS Catalina Setup running on your Mac.

After the installation process is done, you want to shut down your Mac and insert the USB drive for booting up your PC. We’re doing this step to verify patches.

Now you’re totally done with all the settings and what. We have installed the most recent version of macOS booted in an unsupported device.

Catalina On Unsupported Macbook

How to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac: Conclusion

The installation procedure may be hard, but it is painless. If you face any issues installing macOS Catalina on an Unsupported Mac. Feel free to comment down below.

Here are some- Common macOS Catalina Problems and Solutions: 11 Key Errors and their Fix

Incoming Links:

Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac, How to Install macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac, Install macOS on Unsupported Mac, How to Install macOS on Unsupported Mac, macOS Catalina on Unsupported Mac

Apple often removes support for newer macOS version for older hardware. Even if this hardware would be perfectly capable of running the new version, you are out of luck and will not be able to install that new version in a supported way. Fortunately in most cases there is a workaround or patch available to get that version up and running. In this article, I’ll go through the process of creating a bootable USB drive which allows installation of macOS Big Sur on unsupported models. This allows for both a fresh installation or an upgrade.

YouTube Video

If you are interested, I also created a YouTube video from this blogpost. If you prefer classic text, you can just follow the rest of this article:

It’s never nice to hear that a new version of macOS will not longer be supported on your Mac. Especially if the system specifications clearly show that it has plenty of resources to run that unsupported version. Apple has its reasons to stop support for older models. It simply requires quite a lot of extra work and it also motivates people to buy new hardware.

In some cases there are genuine hardware limitations. For example, since Mojave there is a requirement to have a Metal-supported video card. Or you might simply not have enough RAM or a CPU which is too slow. In that case, even though it’s still possible to install the unsupported version, you will not be happy with the results.

Unsupported

To end up with a patched Big Sur installation, there are a few possible options. For this article, I will use MicroPatcher, made by BarryKN (https://github.com/barrykn/big-sur-micropatcher). Alternatively there is also Big Mac (https://github.com/StarPlayrX/bigmac).

These patchers require quite a lot of reading and consideration in order to end up with a proper USB drive for installation. Fortunately, there is also MicroPatcherAutomator (https://github.com/moosethegoose2213/automator-for-barrykn-micropatcher). This project greatly simplifies the work and introduces a GUI that can be used to create the media.

The installation will require a USB drive of 16GB or larger. So start by inserting the drive and start Disk Utility. In Disk Utility, choose to show all devices:

Select your USB drive on the left side, then click erase in the top menu:

Choose a name for the drive, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as file systen and GUID as partition scheme. Then click Erase.

If all goes well, your USB drive should be prepared and you are ready for the next step.

Now that the USB drive is prepared, we can download the tool which we will use for the rest of the process.

Install Unsupported Mac Os X 2008

Download the latest version of the tool using the following link: https://github.com/moosethegoose2213/automator-for-barrykn-micropatcher/releases/download/v2.0/MicropatcherAutomator.dmg and once downloaded, open the DMG file.

When the DMG opens, you will see a singel icon/program in it with a hedgehog as logo. Right click on it and choose open.

Click Open on the warning regarding an unverified developer and click Continue to go to the next screen in the tool:

Here you basically get to choose if you want to use a pre-downloaded installer or just download a fresh copy of the Big Sur installer. I chose for the second option: “Download Installer App”. Click Continue and enter your password in order to continue with the download:

It can take quite some time to complete. After all, it’s a ~12,5GB download. Once done, the tool will ask if you want to use this downloaded installer to create a patched USB drive. Which we obviously do want:

In the next screen, select the volume to use for the installer. Here its important to select the name of the volume which we used when preparing the USB drive in the first step (with Disk Utility). In my case this was “bigsurinstall”:

Continue with the process and enter your password again when requested. MicroPatcherAutomator will now copy all files to the USB drive and make the necessary changes related to the patching process. In my case this took around 50 minutes to complete:

If all goes well, and you were patient enough, you should end with the following screen:

Install Unsupported Mac Os Catalina

Now that we should have a working USB drive, it is time to test it. As suggested in the last step of MicroPatcherAutomator, we need to restart our Mac (or at least the Mac where you want to install Big Sur) and boot it while holding the Option/Alt key.

After the chime, the bootloader should show up and you should be able to see the following:

The first icon (1TB) is my currently installed macOS instance. The other two, the icon with the hedgehog and the USB-drive icon are coming from our patched USB drive.

Here it is important to first launch the last icon (EFI Boot). Once you do this, the system will immediately power off. This is expected and prepares for the next step. If you skip this step, you will end up with a forbidden sign at boot in the next step.

Repeat the process and hold the Alt/Option key while powering on your system again. This time, instead of selecting the EFI Boot option, choose the middle one: “Install macOS Big Sur”.

This will boot the installer from the USB drive and once completed you end up in Recovery:

Unfortunately it’s not very visible on the screenshot but as you can see there is an additional option to be found here: Post-InstallAutomator. This is one of the things that were done by the Automator tool and once Big Sur is installed, we will need to execute this as well.

Before we can install Big Sur, we can format the hard drive to prepare, so choose Disk Utility from the menu. In Disk Utility, choose to select all devices (similar as when preparing the USB drive), then select your hard drive (or SSD) on the left and click Erase. This time, after giving your disk a name, choose for AFPS as file system and click Erase to continue:

After the formatting is completed, close Disk Utility and select the Install macOS Big Sur option from the menu:

Click Continue, accept the license agreement and select the freshly formatted drive as destination on where to install macOS.

From here on, you can again take a coffee (or similar) as the installation can take quite some time. If all goes well, you should see the following screen after a series of reboots:

Navigate through the questions here to end up with the Big Sur desktop.

Having a look at About this Mac shows the following:

You might notice that the model is shown as a generic iMac. This will not really allow you to install any updates. Also, and probably more important: not all hardware is working as expected yet. In my experience mainly networking was not available right after the installation:

Install Unsupported Mac Os X 2009

As mentioned earlier, if you remember, there was an added option in the recovery menu after booting from the USB drive. This is exactly what this is for.

So repeat the whole process to boot from the USB drive (restart, hold Alt/Option and select Install macOS Big Sur, no need to first choose the EFI Boot option). In the recovery menu, this time, select Post-install Automator.

Install Osx On Unsupported Mac

This will start a dialog where you can select the Volume where you installed Big Sur. This is the name you chose when formatting your HD/SSD before installing. 1TB in my case:

Click Continue and let the tool make the necessary changes to your installation.

If all goes well, you will be asked to perform a reboot and after that, all hardware should be availableand you can connect to a network to visit your favorite website:

Install Mac Os Mojave Unsupported Mac

After patching, we can see that the model is now shown correctly and updates will be presented for installation:

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