It doesn’t seem that long ago that we have been looking forward to the release of macOS El Capitan.
Apple really wants you to use macOS Catalina. And if that means you have to buy a new Mac, they’ll find a way to manage their anxiety. Partly for that, and partly to make it obvious to newcomers which is the current version of macOS, the company has long hidden the previous versions.
You just didn’t notice it, because you kept a handy copy as you upgraded. However, this stack of macOS installers that you collected on this old external drive became worthless on October 24, 2019.
All the old macOS you have will no longer work, because the security certificates on them have expired. However, any old macOS installer that you can download from Apple will work now.
And you can download them, you just have to know where to look – and that has also changed recently.
For a few years, Apple kept old installers for versions like El Capitan, Sierra and High Sierra in the App Store, but hid them. You would never see them in the list and you usually can’t find them with a direct search either. You need to read Apple’s support documentation before you can get a link that would magically open the installer in the App Store.
It changes.
Right now, you can still get macOS Mojave and High Sierra, if you follow these specific links deep within the App Store. For Sierra, El Capitan or Yosemite, Apple no longer provides links to the App Store.
If you rummage through the support documentation, however, there is still a way to get one of these particular older versions.
Don’t be mad. But you can still find Apple operating systems from Mac OS X Tiger 2005 if you want.
You could go a step further and get versions of macOS as old as Tiger from 2005. We don’t recommend it and we have no way of testing whether it actually works. However, in a corner of the Apple website that hasn’t seen a painting in a decade, there’s still a page for you to download Mac OS X Tiger.
It’s also a quick download, because Tiger is around 340 MB. For comparison, Catalina is 4.5 GB.
But first, why would you bother
Do not get an older version of macOS because, say, you are running out of disk space and 340MB is attractive. (Modern Macs will not run the Tiger installer anyway, they report that it is an unidentified developer. This could also be due to the expiration of October 24, and if c is the case, it’s hard to see Apple worrying about doing anything about an operating system from almost 15 years ago.)
Even with less prehistoric versions, don’t do it at all, unless you have to.
It’s not that it is difficult or that it is somehow risky for your Mac, but it may be useless. If your Mac is physically capable of running macOS Catalina, you’d better update it.
The only exception is when you depend on old 32-bit applications, as these will not work on Catalina. In this case, update to Mojave.
While Apple supports Macs going back more years than it seems possible, there will still be many machines that will never be able to update to Catalina. And that’s fine because you’re probably going to leave them on whatever they are currently using.
However, it’s easy to end up with old Macs that work well, but could be updated a bit. Maybe not up to Catalina, but maybe up to High Sierra, maybe El Capitan, maybe Mojave.
If you have High Sierra, you can sometimes see an update for it in the App Store. If you are using a later operating system, you cannot find it without receiving the link.
You should do this for each new version of macOS that you can update. It is worth it for the functionality, security and reliability.
And the more you can possibly update your old Mac, the more you can get useful work out of it.
For example, we recently relaunched a MacBook Pro in mid-2009 to transform it into a second screen for our Mac mini 2018 using the new Mac to Mac function of Luna Display.
This app supports versions of macOS since El Capitan in 2015, but no more. Our old half-broken MacBook Pro ran macOS Yosemite but luckily it was able to run El Capitan.
We just had to find it.
How to find it
Choose from the following options to get the official update for macOS and directly from Apple.
In each case, Apple recommends that you first check the latest version that your Mac can run, and then back it up thoroughly and repeatedly.
Apple also notes that you cannot install a version of macOS in addition to a later version. You can’t go back. You can, if you really need a hobby, wipe the Mac and start installing this old macOS again, but it’s hard to imagine a benefit for you.
Craig Federighi presents macOS El Captain in 2015
While it is easy to imagine needing to update an old machine to give it even more years of life.
And maybe Apple keeps these old updates safe, maybe your old collection is now worthless, but take some time and download them all now. The disc images you download now will last you until 2029.
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