Is your Mac up to date with the latest version of the Mac operating system (macOS or OS X)? Is it using the version required by some product or feature? Which versions are earlier (older) or later (newer, more recent) than the version currently installed? To find out, learn which version is installed now.
If not, using Safari, go to to download it and install it.
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If your macOS isn't up to date, you may be able to update to a later version.
Sep 20, 2016 Files you've used recently remain on your Mac along with optimized versions of your photos, so you can work offline. Easily get rid of duplicate and obsolete files. MacOS Sierra can keep unneeded. Oct 31, 2019 macOS High Sierra (aka macOS 10.13) macOS Mojave (aka macOS 10.14) These installers have certificates that are valid until 2029. This article on wphosting.tv has links for downloading some older versions of the Mac operating system (macOS). If you think you might ever need to install an older version then I recommend you download the.
Which macOS version is installed?
From the Apple menu in the corner of your screen, choose About This Mac. You'll see the macOS name, such as macOS Mojave, followed by its version number. If some product or feature requires you to know the build number as well, click the version number to see it.
This example shows macOS Catalina version 10.15 build 19A583.
Which macOS version is the latest?
These are all Mac operating systems, starting with the most recent. When a major new macOS is released, it gets a new name, such as macOS Catalina. And as updates that change the macOS version number become available, this article is updated to show the latest version of that macOS.
If your Mac is using an earlier version of any Mac operating system, you should install the latest Apple software updates, which can include important security updates and updates for the apps installed by macOS, such as Safari, Books, Messages, Mail, Music, Calendar, and Photos.
Learn more
I'm far too much of a fiddler. And in my fiddling I managed to completely FUBAR my beloved and venerable 2010 MacBook Air. I managed to successfully install GNU/Linux along side my macOS High Sierra installation; however, when I went back to reclaim the disk space used by GNU/Linux for my macOS install running APFS, I was met with a failed boot screen. Yikes!
If you have an older Mac and you perform Time Machine (or other) backups, sometimes that diligence might not be enough to get your system back up and running to an expected working state. The recovery process is more involved than simply restoring from Time Machine.
When backups aren't enough
In my previous life as a network and system administrator, I learned (the hard way) that backing up data is only part of the data protection process. In fact, backing up is the easy part. The hard part is system restoration. Just because you have your data ready on a remote disk to be restored, doesn't mean you have a computer ready for you to restore to.
Dealing with older hardware
Normally, if you have a modern Mac, an OS repair is a straight forward thing where you can reboot by pressing the Command-R keys at boot time and be presented with a series of tools to help you recover your Mac.
Following that, you can either re-install (not wiping your personal data), run disk utilities to repair a hard drive (my intention), or wipe your hard disk completely and do a fresh install. When that's done, you can restore from Time Machine as needed. So far so good.
Old begets old
What happens if you have no ability to start restoration utilities at boot time? Well, Apple has a built-in system that allows you to perform an internet-based recovery. 'That's great,' you say. And it is. Until we realize that the recovery mode from the internet will query your system and provide a version of the recovery based on when the system was released. Therefore, since my MacBook was from late 2010, it provided me tools that would only install and repair disks that work with OS X Lion.
macOS High Sierra now runs Apple's new file system, aptly named APFS. APFS isn't supported on OS X Lion. My disk utilities to repair my drive were now useless. So I was forced to wipe and install Lion from the internet recovery utility.
Starting internet recovery mode.
The good news is that getting to internet recovery mode is as easy as starting the regular recovery mode except with some extra steps.
You'll now have to wait while your system downloads the recovery utilities from the internet.
Install OS X
You'll be happily greeted by a familiar (yet older looking) version of the repair utilities where you can restore from Time Machine, install OS X (not a typo since OS X was the default install on my 2010 Mac), or run Disk Utility (Again useless in my case since APFS was what my internal hard drive had running).
You'll be tempted to try and run a restore from Time Machine and your certainly free to try it out to see if things will automatically start working (and if your APFS volume is intact you may be able to). However, I had to do a complete OS X install.
You can follow our guide to install a fresh copy of OS X if you need help.
I strongly suggest to create an Install account rather than use your normal account name when preforming a fresh install so that when you come to the restoration process, you avoid any compatibility issues with having similar account names.
Once again, you'll need to wait a while while your Mac downloads the installation file from the internet.
Upgrade OS X
Once re-installed, you'll quickly want to upgrade to macOS High Sierra. Unfortunately, you can't. You need to first upgrade to a minimal macOS version of 10.8 and that would be macOS X Mountain Lion.
Searching for older versions of macOS in the App Store yields no results. But if you've downloaded and installed previous versions on your Mac, you can simply select it from your purchased apps list.
The installer will automatically start and you can follow the prompts or you can look at how to upgrade your macOS install by following our guide.
Upgrade to macOS High Sierra
Now we can finally go ahead and perform the macOS High Sierra upgrade on our older Mac.
Again the installer will automatically start and you simply follow the prompts or follow our macOS installation guide.
Get your data restored
Finally, we're ready to restore our backed up data. If you back up using Time Machine, here's what you do.
Now you need to wait for the restore to complete which can take many hours depending on the amount of data to restore and how you're transferring that data whether it be via ethernet cable or Wi-Fi.
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When complete, log into your restored account and delete the 'installer' or 'Setup' account if you created one earlier.
Your old mac is Restored! Any comments?
That's finally it. Your older Mac should now be restored to it's pre-FUBAR glory. Do you have any stories from the backup/restore trenches? Let us know in the comments!
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