Which Versions Of macOS Are Compatible With Your Mac?

If you are using an older version of macOS and are ready to update to a newer version, the first step is figuring out which versions of macOS your Mac can use. Apple provides compatibility information for each version, and you can find them all at https://macmost.com/j-system as well. If you are looking to downgrade or to upgrade to a version not supported by your Mac, I have some general advice.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let's talk about which versions of macOS that your Mac can run.
MacMost is brought to you thanks to a great group of more than 1000 supporters. Go to MacMost.com/patreon. There you can read more about the Patreon Campaign. Join us and get exclusive content and course discounts.
So one of the most frequently asked questions about Macs online is which version of macOS can your Mac run. If you have an older Mac in particular you may find that you're not running the most recent version of macOS that you can. The question is which version can you upgrade to. Maybe you can't go all the way to macOS Big Sur but you know you can go further than the OS you are already using. I always recommend that you keep your Mac up-to-date. That you use the latest version of macOS and when a new version comes out you'll update to that. That's how you get the latest features that you paid for when you bought your Mac. But sometimes life gets in the way and you don't have time to update and the months go by and soon you find that you're a version or two behind. Other times you may let the maintenance of your Mac lapse for several months or even years and then find that you need to jump to the most current version of macOS that you can in order to run some software that you need. Whatever your reason for wanting to update now the one rule for all updates is to make sure that your backup is up-to-date. Make sure you're running Time Machine and that you've just completed a Time Machine backup before you update. If you're not running Time Machine you've got to STOP everything you're doing and start a backup right now. Everybody should have a backup going. Those that use their Macs professionally they want to have more than one backup. A clone or online backup as a second backup. Make sure all your backups are up-to-date before you do a major system update. But you already know that, right. Good.
Another thing people get confused about is the difference between major updates, like going from Mojave to Catalina or Catalina to Big Sur, and the system updates that happen in-between. The in-between updates, the minor updates, you get those when you go to System Preferences and there's Software Update. You should have things setup here under Advanced to automatically check for these new updates. So these minor updates are within the major updates. In other words if you have macOS Big Sur you get several updates within Big Sur. So it goes from Big Sur 11.0 to 11.1 to 11.2 and now we're at 11.4. So these all should happen automatically. If they don't you can access them under Software Update here in System Preferences. However, you won't get the major updates here. Software Update won't take you, for instance, from Catalina to Big Sur. In order to do that you need to get the update in the App Store and you should get lots of notifications from Apple that it's available and also it's probably going to be the top thing at the App Store for at least a month after the release of the new macOS. 
So what version of macOS can you run. Well, it can be tricky to figure that out. The first thing you need to do is figure out which Mac you have. Now don't worry about model numbers or technical specifications or anything like that. The version of macOS you can run depends on the actual model name and year of your Mac. It doesn't matter which CPU you have, which DPU you have, how much RAM or disk space you've got. It's the model name and year. In order to find that out all you need to do is go to the Apple Menu and then About This Mac. You'll find it right here. In this case I've got a MacPro 2019. That's what you're looking for when you want to identify your Mac. This one is a MacPro 2019. Here's another example. This is my M1 MacBook Pro and you could see this is identified as MacBook Pro (13 inch, M1, 2020). That's the identifier you're looking for. Here is another one. This is for my older MacBook Pro. 
So once you know that the next thing to do is to look online. Now Apple has pages for each version of macOS. All you need to do to find them is do a web search for the name of the operating system. So let's do macOS Big Sur and then the word compatible. Usually it's the first hit. Here you could see it's a page at support.apple.com macOS Big Sur is compatible with. Okay let's go and look at that. This is the official page here. What you find here is a list of all the Macs that are compatible with this. Sometimes it just shows you a Mac model and then every year after that. In this case you can look up your exact Mac model by its name, like that. Then figure out whether or not you can run, in this case, Big Sur. Here are two of the Macs that I just showed. Let's try the same thing but with Catalina and here's that same type of page from Apple and you could see all the models that Catalina will run on. 
So unfortunately it's not easy to figure out which version of macOS you could go to because you have to look at each one of those. You can start with Big Sur and then  work backwards and find the most recent version of macOS that your Mac is listed for. So to make things a little easier I have compiled a page. I have it here at MacMost. It's MacMost.com/macOS-system-requirements-list.html. But here's a shortcut to make it easier to get to this page. You could see here at the requirements list and all of the most recent versions of macOS all the way back to Yosemite are included. Then even some notes about earlier versions of macOS. So just look through each one and figure out what is the latest version that your Mac can use. In addition I'm listing the release date for each one of these and you can also click on the Wikipedia link where you can find out all about the new features that are in each version of macOS. So if there is something in particular that you're looking for you have a quick link to that. 
Now in most cases you've got a link to the Mac App Store. You can go to the App Store and find that version of macOS and then get it through the Mac App Store. That's the right way to update macOS. But if you go back far enough instead of a Mac App Store link you're going to get a link to a disk image installer that you can download instead. 
Now there are two questions that I know I'm going to get from this video. One is how about if you want to downgrade. How about if you're at Big Sur, Catalina, or something and you want to go backwards. I don't recommend doing this for anybody. If you've got old software that you need to go back before Catalina in order to use I recommend updating that software or finding a replacement. Don't take your entire computer backward just to run that outdated piece of software. Or if you're sticking to an old version of software it's time to upgrade to the latest version of that app. You're going to have to upgrade eventually if you're using an old Mac. One day you're going to have to get a new Mac and that Mac is not going to be able to go to earlier operating systems. A Mac can only use the operating system that was out when that model came out or newer. It can't go backwards. So if you're sticking with say Mojave now to run an older app one day you're going to get a new Mac and you're not going to be able to run that older app. So you might as well upgrade that app now or move to a different app while you can and do it on your own terms rather than being forced to do it in the future. If you do want to downgrade it's a pretty complex operation. There are many ways to do it. 
One is to use Time Machine to roll your entire disk back to an earlier time. But then you might loose files and things like that. It's very tricky. You can also go into a special recovery mode that's Shift Option Command R when you restart. That will restore the system not to the current version but to the earliest version that your Mac can use. The one it probably came with. So you can go way back to something and then upgrade from there to the version that you want. You can also make a USB Installer but that's complex as well. So chances are if you have a really good technical reason for wanting to go back to an earlier operating system you know how to do one of these things. If you don't know how to do one of these things I definitely don't recommend rolling back to an earlier operating system just because you don't like something about the new one or you're not used to it yet. It often takes a little time to get used to some changes. Give yourself the time to learn the latest and greatest of macOS.
Another question I'm going to get is how do you upgrade a Mac that isn't listed in the requirements list. In other words here with macOS Big Sur maybe you want to use Big Sur on a MacBook Pro from 2012. So how can you do that? Well, there is a way and it's called using a micro patcher. It's pretty complex and I would not recommend anybody do it unless you really know what you're doing. If you've got an older Mac that's not supposed to be compatible with Big Sur or Catalina or whatever version just stick with the latest version that your Mac can use if you don't want to get a new Mac. Just continue to use it on the latest version of the operating system. It's not going to be perfect but neither will running a version of macOS that isn't compatible with your Mac. That won't be perfect either. At least stick with the supported route and just use the latest version that's compatible with your Mac. That's my recommendation anyway. If you've got an older Mac and you want to experiment with it, if it's your hobby to experiment with computers, then by all means go ahead and try a MicroPatcher and see what sort of fun you can have. So I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 4 Responses to “Which Versions Of macOS Are Compatible With Your Mac?”

Eddie Roche

3 years ago

what if there was an issue about ios ipados and macos

Gary Rosenzweig

Eddie: What do you mean? What sort of issue?

Joe Martinez

2 years ago

Good Evening,
I have an Macbook Pro, Retina, 13in, mid 2014. OS 10.95. (13F1911). I backed up my data with time machine on an external hard drive (HD). I did some research and found out I can upgrade to Big Sur OS. I want to upgrade the OS, but I am afraid if I partition my PC HD I will not be able to transfer my data from my external HD to the new OS. I could use some advice about this issue.
Thanks,
Joe Martinez

Joe: Why “partition” your drive at all? Sorry I don’t understand what you are trying to do.

Comments Closed.

Which Versions Of macOS Are Compatible With Your Mac?

Comments: 4 Responses to “Which Versions Of macOS Are Compatible With Your Mac?”

Welcome to MacMost

Free Weekly Newsletter

MacMost Online Courses

Keyboard Shortcuts PDF

Connect with MacMost

MacMost Sections

Popular Tutorials

Information