This year's macOS Mojave beta, and subsequent update, won't run and can't be installed on any Mac older than about 2012 —or so Apple thinks. However, if you're the sort to believe that every year Apple tries to force everyone to buy new Macs, and you also forget that 2012 was six years ago, you're in luck.But, there is now a way to ignore Apple and install macOS Mojave on any Mac you like. Or at least any Mac you like back to around 2008.There are exceptions. The new and most utterly not Apple supported macOS Mojave Patcher Tool will even go back to 2007 if you have a very specific iMac that you've already upgraded in a very specific way.
![]()
Questionsor comments? Feel free to contact me at [email protected] Pleasetake a look at the FAQ located at the bottom of this page as well.
I also have a YouTube video going over the whole process. Requirements: - Early-2008 or newer Mac Pro, iMac, or MacBook Pro(MacPro 3,1 and 4,1, iMac 8,1 and 9,1, MacBook Pro 4,1, 5,1 5,2, 5,3,5,4, and 5,5) - Late-2008 or newer MacBook Air or Aluminum Unibody MacBook (MacBookAir 2,1, MacBook 5,1) - Early-2009 or newer Mac Mini or white MacBook (Macmini 3,1, MacBook 5,2) - Early-2008 or newer Xserve (Xserve 2,1, Xserve 3,1) Machines that ARE NOT supported: - 2006-2007 Mac Pros, iMacs, MacBookPros, and Mac Minis (MacPro 1,1 and 2,1, iMac 4,1, 5,1, 5,2, 6,1 and7,1, MacBook Pro 1,1, 2,1, and 3,1, Macmini 1,1 and 2,1) -- The 2007 iMac 7,1 is compatible if the CPU is upgraded to a Penryn-based Core 2 Duo, such as a T9300. - 2006-2008 MacBooks (MacBook 1,1, 2,1 3,1 and 4,1) - 2008 MacBook Air (MacBookAir 1,1) -- Note: Make sure SIP is disabled on the system you intend to installHigh Sierra on. If it's not or you're unsure, just boot into your Recoverypartition of your currently installed copy of OS X, open Terminal, andrun 'csrutil disable'. Things you'll need: - A copy of the macOS High Sierra InstallerApp. This can be obtained from the Mac App Store using a machinethatsupports High Sierra, or by using the built-in downloading feature of the tool. In the Menu Bar, simply select 'Tools > Download macOS High Sierra...' - A USB drive that's at least 8 GB in size - A copy of the tool - Download here (Current version: 2.7.0, SHA1: 73f180d30200ef5f6d900440fe57b9c7d22bd6bf) -- View changelog and download older versions here Known issues: - Trackpad (MacBook5,2 affected only). The trackpad in the MacBook5,2isn't fully supported in High Sierra. While it works and is fully usable,High Sierra detects it as just a standard mouse, preventing you fromchanging some trackpad-oriented settings. How to use: 1. Insert your desired USB drive, open Disk Utility, and format it as OS X Extended (Journaled). 2. Open the 'macOS High Sierra Patcher' tool, and browse for your copy of the macOS High Sierra Installer App. *Ensure that the tool successfully verifies the app. 3. Next, select your USB drive in the Target Volume list, and click 'Start Operation.' 4. When the operation completes, boot your target unsupported Mac offthe USB drive you just created by holding down the Option key while turning on the machine, and selecting the drive. Note: Only perform steps 5 and 6 if you intend to do a clean install.Otherwise, you can simply skip these steps and install to your volumecontaing a previous version of OS X, and it'll do an in-place upgrade. 5. When the installer boots, open Disk Utility from the Utilities menu, or by double-clicking it in the Utilities window on the bottom left corner of the screen. 6. Select the disk or partition you want to install on, and erase it,ensuring to use either Mac OS Extended (Journaled), or APFS as the filesystem type.If formatting an entire drive, ensure GUID is selected. -- Please note that if you use APFS, you will not have a bootable Recovery partition. -- It is recommended that you only use APFS if the target drive is an SSD. -- If you decide to use APFS, a custom booting method will be installed by the post-install tool, as the firmware of these unsupported machines does not natively support booting from APFS volumes. It is not quite as clean as native booting, but will not cause any issues while running High Sierra. A demo of the modified booting process can be viewed here. 7. Install macOS normally onto the desired volume. 8. When the install completes, reboot back onto the installer drive.This time, open the 'macOS Post Install' application. 9. In the application, select the Mac model you are using. The optimalpatches will be selected for you based on the model you select. You canalso select other patches of your choosing. -- The 'i' button next to each patch will show more details about the respective patch. 10. Select the volume you have just installed macOS High Sierra on, andclick 'Patch.' When it finishes patching, click 'Reboot'. It may sitthere for a few moments rebuilding caches before rebooting. -- If for somereason the system fails to work correctly after rebooting, boot backinto your installer drive, run the post install patch again, and select'Force Cache Rebuild' before rebooting. This isn't necessary under mostcircumstances. 11. When it reboots, it should now boot into a fully working copy ofmacOS High Sierra. Additional Info: - If selected in the macOS Post Install tool, your High Sierra install will have a program named 'Patch Updater' located in your /Applications/Utilities folder. This program will alert you when new updates to patches are available for your machine, and will prompt you to install them. If you do not have Patch Updater installed, but would like it, you can download and run the script found here to do so. Updates System updates, such as 10.13.1, should install normally if 'Software Update Patch' was selected in the macOS Post Install tool, or installed using the Patch Updater program. If for some reason updates aren't showing up, or you did not apply the patch, you can install it manually using the script found here. -- If the machine does not start up properly after applying a system update, you will need to boot off your patched installer volume, and re-run the post-install patch on your High Sierra volume. Ensure you select 'Force Cache Rebuild' before rebooting. FAQ: Q: The tool created the USB drive successfully, but when booting, the progress bar hangs a bit more than half way. A: Check your copy of the Install macOS High Sierra App. If you're using thelatest version of the tool, you must be using the latest version of theInstall macOS High Sierra App. Version 1.1 ofthe patch tool and older support older versions of the installer app. Q: The patch tool gives me errors, such as 'Error copying files...'. A: Check to make sure your USB drive is writeable. Try re-formatting it, or just try a different USB drive. Q: The patch tool gives me a 'Mounting Failed' error A: Check to make sure your Install macOS High Sierra App is the correct one.It should be around 5GB in size. If you used the 'Skip AppVerification' option, you have most likely selected an invalid app thatdoesn't contain the necessary files. Q: I cannot open my copy of Install macOS High Sierra with the patch tool. A: If you downloaded the copy linked above, it is distributed inside aDMG file. You must open this file (mount it) to access the InstallmacOS High Sierra App you need to select. Q: I don't see my hard drive partition in the installer screen or in the post-install tool. A: Make sure FileVault is disabled, or use the instructions found here to unlock it manually using Terminal. Q: I get a 'NO' symbol when starting up after successfully installing High Sierra. A: Make sure you have run the post-install patch on the correct volume, as detailed above in steps 8-10. Q: I get a 'NO' symbol when starting up from the patched USB drive A: Check the supported/not supported list at the top of this page. Ensure your machine is in the supported list. Q: My iSight camera doesn't work after installing High Sierra A: Make sure you properly remove (using the program's uninstaller, not by simply dragging the application to the Trash) all virtual machine software installed on your machine, such as VirtualBox, VMWare, etc. Q: I get 'NSURL' errors when trying to update my machine or use the App Store A: This is usually the result of having an invalid CatalogURL set. To revert to stock, simply run 'sudo softwareupdate --clear-catalog' in Terminal, and then run the software update patch script located above. Q: Safari, App Store, and/or Mail stopped working after installing a system update A: Download and run the Onyx application, select 'Maintenence' at the top, then click the Run button. Q: I get a 'No packages were eligible for install' error when attepting to install High Sierra A: This is due to your system's date and time being set incorrectly. To fix it, you can either boot into your current OS X install and set the date, or you can use Terminal after booting from your patched USB installer drive to set the date. Instructions to set the date using Terminal can be found here. ![]()
After posting “How to make a bootable macOS Mojave (10.14) installer drive”, I got an email from Eric Z. I know lots of folks wouldn’t do it, but Collin Mistr has made a tool to create a bootable USB installer for unsupported hardware.I’ll be using it to get Mojave onto my 2009 Xserve! Mostly for kicks. The patch tool automatically detects your Mac model and shows what you have here. If you are unsure at all which Mac you have, select the model listed here. My suggestion is that you select ALL of the checkboxes that you can.
That said, Apple's official list also has exceptions: if you have the right Mac Pro you can install Mojave on even a mid-2010 machine.We get that you may well not be able to afford a new Mac. These are far from cheap machines. Plus even a ten-year-old MacBook Pro is a good computer and we'd not be at all surprised if you were still getting great use out of it.We would just then be surprised that you want to risk that great use by installing a macOS update that it can't handle.On your own head and someone else's hard driveThe Mojave Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs is. This is the same guy that did this for High Sierra, and has supplied a series of other hacks and workarounds for fans of older Apple hardware.Doubtlessly the tool is a clever piece of programming that is be far beyond our skill, but ultimately it just does one thing —it prevents Apple's macOS installation tool from spotting that the machine you're using is too old.Other than that, it takes macOS Mojave and installs it on a drive. But, if you're now wondering where it gets Mojave from, you've spotted a potential hang-up in the process.
To get a copy of macOS Mojave to install on an unsupported Mac, you have to be in the Apple Beta program but more importantly than that, you have to download it on a supported Mac.So, unless you've got friends who have newer Macs yet not enough conscience to warn you off this idea because it is potentially hazardous to your data and hardware, you've got to personally have a Mojave-capable Mac. If you have, go ahead, use Mojave on that.Normally we'd be hesitant about that too. Apple's macOS, like any operating system, is so complex that it's bound to have some problems on older gear. Every year we generally advise you to wait a little while before installing the final version. Every year we also point out that installing the beta is fine so long as you do it on a spare Mac.We say both of those things about Macs that are supposed to be able to run these things. Even when they are, the advice to wait for a while after official release is a good suggestion. The advice to stay away from the beta versions entirely on a critical work machine is more like a firm rule.If you use this tool to install macOS Mojave on a Mac that Apple itself says won't work, you can't honestly expect a great experience.
You're not going to transform that brilliant 2008 MacBook Air into a 2018 model. You're more likely to transform it into a somewhat less brilliant 2008 brick under more load than the hardware should have to bear.It is good to have the same macOS on all of your machines, and it's even slightly disorientating when you're swapping between Mojave and Sierra. However, take the disorientation because it's better than having no functioning Mac at all.One more thing. If you do use this patch tool to install macOS Mojave on your main Mac, please remember that you can still read AppleInsider on your iPhone if things go awry.
![]() Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
January 2023
Categories |