To find out whether the app on your Mac is 32-bit or 64-bit follow these steps: Click on Apple logo in the top left corner of the Mac screen. Click on About This Mac option. Click on System Report button in Overview tab (first one) Scroll down to Software - Applications. Find the app and check Kind.

• Mac OS does not provide you with the full control of its platform. It does that to make things easier for you simultaneously enhancing your user experience. With Linux, you can do whatever you want – which may result in poor user experience (for some) – but it does make it more reliable.
• Mac’s version is a bit more systemwide, with some older Windows dialogs still not darkened. The Windows 10 May 2019 Update adds a Custom option, which lets you decide whether you want dark.

So, you’ve decided to download an older version of Mac OS X. There are many reasons that could point you to this radical decision. To begin with, some of your apps may not be working properly (or simply crash) on newer operating systems. Also, you may have noticed your Mac’s performance went down right after the last update. Finally, if you want to run a parallel copy of Mac OS X on a virtual machine, you too will need a working installation file of an older Mac OS X. Further down we’ll explain where to get one and what problems you may face down the road.

A list of all Mac OS X versions

We’ll be repeatedly referring to these Apple OS versions below, so it’s good to know the basic macOS timeline.

It's A Match Mac Os X

STEP 1. Prepare your Mac for installation

Given your Mac isn’t new and is filled with data, you will probably need enough free space on your Mac. This includes not just space for the OS itself but also space for other applications and your user data. One more argument is that the free space on your disk translates into virtual memory so your apps have “fuel” to operate on. The chart below tells you how much free space is needed.

Note, that it is recommended that you install OS on a clean drive. Next, you will need enough disk space available, for example, to create Recovery Partition. Here are some ideas to free up space on your drive:

• Uninstall large unused apps
• Empty Trash Bin and Downloads
• Locate the biggest files on your computer:

Go to Finder > All My Files > Arrange by size
Then you can move your space hoggers onto an external drive or a cloud storage.
If you aren’t comfortable with cleaning the Mac manually, there are some nice automatic “room cleaners”. Our favorite is CleanMyMac as it’s most simple to use of all. It deletes system junk, old broken apps, and the rest of hidden junk on your drive.

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.4 - 10.8 (free version)

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.9 (free version)

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.10 - 10.14 (free version)

STEP 2. Get a copy of Mac OS X download

Normally, it is assumed that updating OS is a one-way road. That’s why going back to a past Apple OS version is problematic. The main challenge is to download the OS installation file itself, because your Mac may already be running a newer version. If you succeed in downloading the OS installation, your next step is to create a bootable USB or DVD and then reinstall the OS on your computer.

How to download older Mac OS X versions via the App Store

If you once had purchased an old version of Mac OS X from the App Store, open it and go to the Purchased tab. There you’ll find all the installers you can download. However, it doesn’t always work that way. The purchased section lists only those operating systems that you had downloaded in the past. But here is the path to check it:

It's A Match Mac Os 7

1. Click the App Store icon.
2. Click Purchases in the top menu.
3. Scroll down to find the preferred OS X version.
4. Click Download.

This method allows you to download Mavericks and Yosemite by logging with your Apple ID — only if you previously downloaded them from the Mac App Store.

Without App Store: Download Mac OS version as Apple Developer

If you are signed with an Apple Developer account, you can get access to products that are no longer listed on the App Store. If you desperately need a lower OS X version build, consider creating a new Developer account among other options. The membership cost is $99/year and provides a bunch of perks unavailable to ordinary users.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that if you visit developer.apple.com/downloads, you can only find 10.3-10.6 OS X operating systems there. Newer versions are not available because starting Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.7, the App Store has become the only source of updating Apple OS versions.

Purchase an older version of Mac operating system

You can purchase a boxed or email version of past Mac OS X directly from Apple. Both will cost you around $20. For the reason of being rather antiquated, Snow Leopard and earlier Apple versions can only be installed from DVD.

Buy a boxed edition of Snow Leopard 10.6
Get an email copy of Lion 10.7
Get an email copy of Mountain Lion 10.8

The email edition comes with a special download code you can use for the Mac App Store. Note, that to install the Lion or Mountain Lion, your Mac needs to be running Snow Leopard so you can install the newer OS on top of it.

How to get macOS El Capitan download

If you are wondering if you can run El Capitan on an older Mac, rejoice as it’s possible too. But before your Mac can run El Capitan it has to be updated to OS X 10.6.8. So, here are main steps you should take:

1. Install Snow Leopard from install DVD.
2. Update to 10.6.8 using Software Update.
3. Download El Capitan here.

“I can’t download an old version of Mac OS X”

If you have a newer Mac, there is no physical option to install Mac OS versions older than your current Mac model. For instance, if your MacBook was released in 2014, don’t expect it to run any OS released prior of that time, because older Apple OS versions simply do not include hardware drivers for your Mac.

But as it often happens, workarounds are possible. There is still a chance to download the installation file if you have an access to a Mac (or virtual machine) running that operating system. For example, to get an installer for Lion, you may ask a friend who has Lion-operated Mac or, once again, set up a virtual machine running Lion. Then you will need to prepare an external drive to download the installation file using OS X Utilities.

After you’ve completed the download, the installer should launch automatically, but you can click Cancel and copy the file you need. Below is the detailed instruction how to do it.

STEP 3. Install older OS X onto an external drive

The following method allows you to download Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.

1. Start your Mac holding down Command + R.
2. Prepare a clean external drive (at least 10 GB of storage).
3. Within OS X Utilities, choose Reinstall OS X.
4. Select external drive as a source.
5. Enter your Apple ID.

Now the OS should start downloading automatically onto the external drive. After the download is complete, your Mac will prompt you to do a restart, but at this point, you should completely shut it down. Now that the installation file is “captured” onto your external drive, you can reinstall the OS, this time running the file on your Mac.

1. Boot your Mac from your standard drive.
2. Connect the external drive.
3. Go to external drive > OS X Install Data.

Locate InstallESD.dmg disk image file — this is the file you need to reinstall Lion OS X. The same steps are valid for Mountain Lion and Mavericks.

How to downgrade a Mac running later macOS versions

If your Mac runs macOS Sierra 10.12 or macOS High Sierra 10.13, it is possible to revert it to the previous system if you are not satisfied with the experience. You can do it either with Time Machine or by creating a bootable USB or external drive.
Instruction to downgrade from macOS Sierra

Instruction to downgrade from macOS High Sierra

Instruction to downgrade from macOS Mojave

Instruction to downgrade from macOS Catalina

Before you do it, the best advice is to back your Mac up so your most important files stay intact. In addition to that, it makes sense to clean up your Mac from old system junk files and application leftovers. The easiest way to do it is to run CleanMyMac X on your machine (download it for free here).

It's A Match Mac Os Catalina

Visit your local Apple Store to download older OS X version

If none of the options to get older OS X worked, pay a visit to nearest local Apple Store. They should have image installations going back to OS Leopard and earlier. You can also ask their assistance to create a bootable USB drive with the installation file. So here you are. We hope this article has helped you to download an old version of Mac OS X. Below are a few more links you may find interesting.

Last time, I talked about the “dark matter” of your iOS devices and OS X systems: stuff that seems to occupy space without offering up information about why. In this Mac 911, I’ll answer more questions about storage and backup.

As many as grains of sand on the beach

Doug Eldred writes in with a concern about a form of file bloat—but not about bloated sizes. Rather, the sheer number of items that seem to appear on his drive.

Whatever or wherever they are, they must not be terribly large, but my Mac used to have less than a million files (according to various tools, including SuperDuper!), and now it’s [up] to 1.3 million. Trust me, I haven’t knowingly created 300K new file recently!

Mac OS X (and, invisibly, iOS) has always had an inordinate quantity of files because of its Unix underpinnings. There is something about Unix that loves a multiplicity of tiny files rather than monolithic larger ones, hence these huge counts.

In the way back, in the long ago, it used to matter, because each file consumed a minimum amount of hard disk space regardless of the actual amount of data in it, and no more than 65,536 files on the drive. With HFS+, however, a drive can have nearly 4.3 billion files without each consuming unreasonable amounts of space.

Doug continues:

Those zillions of stray files don’t seem to consume much space, but tools like SuperDuper! and Disk Utility “verify disk” need to process each and every one of them in one way or another.

To my recollection and experience, the number of files shouldn’t contribute to any system slowdowns, because they’re inert unless needed. But during the cases that Doug mentions, could it cause delays? And why are there all these files being created, anyway?

I turned to an expert: Dave Nanian, the founder of Shirt Pocket, makers of the SuperDuper! app that Doug uses. SuperDuper! is a disk backup utility that makes an exact, bootable clone of a drive, and I have it scheduled to run every night on my main computer in addition to two other forms of incremental document backup.

Dave writes:

Ah, 1.3 million files. I remember those early days, back when laptops were made of plastic, and chips by IBM. But today, you’re not alone. The laptop I’m typing on right now has—according to Disk Utility—6,709,682 files. Make that, two seconds later, 6,709,687.

In general, especially if you’re not seeing excessive disk usage, this just isn’t something to worry about. There are a lot of hidden folders on your drive, sometimes entire hierarchies that are emulating things that can’t be directly expressed in HFS+, but are still counted as “files,” even though you wouldn’t ever access them that way.

Apple implemented Time Machine in a very peculiar way by most developers’ reckoning to create an exact copy without duplicating every file. Using so-called hard links, which allows a single copy of data to appear multiple times in a folder hierarchy, Time Machine creates hidden folders that fully replicate a hard disk’s file structure. A Time Machine backup comprises mostly hard links pointing to existing files or folders unchanged since the previous backup. Each hard link is counted by OS X as a separate file.

Dave notes that Time Machine also stores a sort of local backup on the startup drive to improve its performance in copying to a local drive or a remote one over the network. Most other backup software makes an initial copy of a file and then a “delta,” or a kind of summary of differences, for every version stored thereafter.

And Spotlight contributes to the file count: for better indexing, Mac apps have reference files for each quantum of data, such as an email message, to match a result up with an item. On one machine, I have hundreds of thousands of metadata files associated with email messages. Combine Spotlight and Time Machine, and you can see where the file count comes from. I don’t use Time Machine and have nearly 1.8 million files on my MacBook Air.

Dave has consoling words, though:

I wouldn’t worry about it too much — let the system handle its files, and don’t be too concerned about the count. As long as your drive isn’t mysteriously filling up, you’re good.

Selective Time Machine

On the related suject of Time Machine, Larry Landen asks:

When I reinstall Mac OS X (to solve performance problems, or clear space) I have a restore option to migrate data from my Time Capsule, but it currently only gives me options to migrate entire user profiles, applications, and settings.

How may I pull only selected data (such as images, and iTunes media like music and movies, and documents) rather than an entire profile? I fear that restoring an entire profile may also restore any problems that made me want to reinstall OS X.

It’s a sensible and reasonable question: if some kind of corrupted or inaccurate setting is causing system problems, aren’t you just asking for trouble by bringing all your settings over? Likely no. With the except of specific applications having corrupted configuration files, a clean installation and a migration of settings generally seems to avoid causing identical problems in OS X. (Solving corrupt app settings varies, but often involves tossing a file or several from ~Library/Preferences/ with the advice of the software’s maker.)

That’s in part because the corruption or other setting issues you’re having can result from missing or overwritten system files or configurations that aren’t copied back as part of a Time Machine migration.

With Migration Assistant, however, which you can launch on a computer after you’ve reinstalled and updated OS X, you can select certain sets of data to reimport, and can omit all your settings.

Another option, is to use the aforementioned SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner to back up a volume, or software/service combinations like Backblaze or Crashplan to specific files or folders. Then you can more easily pick and choose what to restore.

Ask Mac 911

You can email things that perplex you or need solving to mac911@macworld.com, tweet them at me (if brief) @glennf, or call 206–337–5833 and leave a voicemail. (We’ll be experimenting with some audio in the future, and may put your question “on the air.”)