Early-2009 or newer Mac Mini or white MacBook (Mac Mini 3,1, MacBook 5,2) Early-2008 or newer Xserve (Xserve 2,1, Xserve 3,1). If you happen to own any of the Penryn Macs mentioned above, the macOS High Sierra Patch Tool written by DOSDude1 will make running the latest software possible. Insert your desired USB drive, open Disk Utility, and format it as OS X Extended (Journaled). 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. Next, select your USB drive in the Target Volume list, and click 'Start Operation.' How to run High Sierra and older on an older Mac DOSDude1 wrote a similar patch for High Sierra and prior to that Sierra. With the patch installed you can go back as far as early 2008 models. MacOS Sierra (version 10.12) is the thirteenth major release of macOS (previously known as OS X and Mac OS X), Apple Inc.' S desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. The name 'macOS' stems from the intention to uniform the operating system's name with that of iOS, watchOS and tvOS.
Now that Apple's latest desktop operating system is out, many users would want to install it on their Macs, even if they are not officially supported. Luckily, you can use ‘Patched Sur' to install macOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs. Follow our guide to see how you can do so.
Install macOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs with this Big Sur Patcher
A new tool called ‘Patched Sur', currently in beta, allows users to download and install macOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs. The patcher downloads the original installation file for Big Sur (or optionally, the public or developer beta), and also downloads a micropatcher for kexts and other resources that allow macOS 11 to be installed on unsupported Macs, along with working services and features.
Unsupported Macs supported by ‘Patched Sur'
2009 Mac Pro Os
First of all, make sure that your Mac is not in the official macOS Big Sur list of compatible Macs. At the time of writing, the following Macs are supported:
- Fully supported Macs:
- iMac – late 2013
- Mac Pro – 2010/2012
- Mac Pro – 2009
- MacBook Pro – 2012
- Other Macs released in 2012/2013
- Partially supported Macs:
- iMac – 2009 – 2010 (with GPUs that support Metal)
- iMac and MacBooks – 2011
- MacBook – mid-2010 and late-2009
- 13-inch MacBook Pro – 2010
- MacBook Air – 2010
- Mac mini – 2010
- Unsupported Macs
- 15″/17″ MacBook Pro – 2012
- iMac – 2010
- Any Mac with pre-Penryn Intel CPU
This is not an exhaustive list by any means, and it could increase with time as more users test the patcher with their Macs.
Use Patched Sur to install macOS Big Sur on unsupported Macs
To get started, make sure that you have a 16GB USB drive with no important data on it. This will be used to create a bootable macOS Big Sur USB installer later in the guide.
- Download the latest version of ‘Patched Sur' from Github.
- Open the file on your Mac. You might have to go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General and click on ‘Open Anyway' for the first time when you run the app.
- Once in the app, go to the next screens by clicking ‘Start' and ‘Continue' until you see the below screen to ‘Set Update Track'. We suggest selecting ‘Release' here as you are already trying something which might have bugs and stability issues. Using a public beta or developer beta will just add to these issues.
- Select ‘Clean' or ‘Update' on this screen. At the time of writing, only ‘Update' option is supported. The ‘Clean' option will completely wipe your Mac and reinstall macOS Big Sur.
- In the next step, the tool will download various kext patches to ensure that your Mac can use most of its hardware after upgrading to macOS Big Sur.
- Next, click on ‘Download macOS 11.0.1', or whatever the latest version is that shows here. If you have already downloaded a copy of macOS Big Sur, click on ‘view other versions' to point the tool to it. This is helpful in situations where the Internet connection is slow and you want to utilize the macOS copy you already have.If you select the download option, let it complete. The download file is around 12GB so it might take a while.
- Once the download completes, you will have to enter your Mac password and click continue. This will allow the patcher to use createinstallmedia tool to create a macOS Big Sur bootable installer USB.Plug in the USB to your Mac and select it in the below screen. Click continue and let the process complete.
- Restart your Mac, and press and hold the Option key when it's booting up. You should see the Startup Manager. Select the EFI boot drive and hit return. Your Mac might restart again. Select the option to install macOS Big Sur, and follow the steps to complete the installation process.
- Once macOS Big Sur is installed and boots up, open the Applications folder and run the ‘Patched Sur' app. You might have to enter your Mac password to allow it to run. Once done, reboot your Mac.
Install future macOS Big Sur updates on unsupported Macs
Whenever there is an update for macOS Big Sur, instead of updating using Software Update in System Preferences, open ‘Patched Sur' to download the latest version, and repeat the above steps again to complete the upgrade.
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While the yearly major macOS update system is free to install, it is still limited to Macs that Apple deems compatible, and every year a generation of Macs essentially becomes obsolete. This is despite the fact that Apple is eager to emphasize that macOS is a widely compatible operating system.
As it happens, there are still people with close to ten-year-old Apple desktop computers still in use on a daily basis, likely performing a range of lighter tasks.
Download CleanMyMac X from MacPaw's website and clean up to 500MB of junk data from your computer while enjoying all the features of the software without major limitations.
Which Macs Don't Support High Sierra
For some reason Apple doesn't want to allow these Macs to run one of its latest operating systems, namely macOS 10.13 High Sierra. This leaves the following Macs on macOS 10.11 El Capitan:
- MacBook Pro – late-2009 or earlier models
- MacBook – late-2008 or earlier models
- MacBook Air – 2009 or earlier models
- iMac – late-2008 or earlier models
- Mac Mini – 2009 or earlier models
- Mac Pro – 2009 or earlier models.
These machines are considered obsolete and vintage by Apple. The company defines vintage products as those that have not been manufactured for more than five years but less than seven years ago. Obsolete products are those discontinued more than seven years ago.
How To Install macOS High Sierra on Unsupported Macs
Though Apple doesn't support the above hardware officially, someone has thought about sharing the love for these older machines. A developer known as DOSDude1 has written a patch that works on Macs with the Penryn architecture. Using this still imposes certain limitations, but at least makes it possible to install macOS High Sierra on the following Macs:
Mac Os Sierra Early 2009 Ford
- 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 (MacBook Air 2,1, MacBook 5,1).
- Early-2009 or newer Mac Mini or white MacBook (Mac Mini 3,1, MacBook 5,2)
- Early-2008 or newer Xserve (Xserve 2,1, Xserve 3,1).
If you happen to own any of the Penryn Macs mentioned above, the macOS High Sierra Patch Tool written by DOSDude1 will make running the latest software possible. But remember, with High Sierra you will also migrate to the Apple File System, and it is highly recommended that you first disable SIP because it may prevent the patch from working at all.
Installing the operating system on any of these Macs will require some technical knowledge, so it is not recommended for novice users. Also, a backup of your data is always a good idea in case anything goes wrong.
While there is a full step-by-step tutorial and video tutorial available on DOSDude1's website, it's good to get a summary of the basics, which start with downloading the macOS High Sierra Installer app from the Mac App Store:
- Format a USB drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) via Disk Utility.
- Open the macOS High Sierra Patcher tool, navigate to the High Sierra Installer App, then select your pen drive and click 'Start Operation'.
- Boot from the USB drive by holding down the option key after reboot.
- Install macOS normally, reboot back on the installer drive, and then open the 'macOS Post Install' application.
- From the options, select the Mac model you own. This step is important, because it contains the optimal patch for that specific model.
- Click the 'Patch' button, and after the process has finished, click 'Reboot'.
The Reason Not To Install macOS High Sierra on an Unsupported Mac
As you may have already experienced with other types of officially unsupported machines, the probability of having issues is much higher. The same applies in this case, too, since the macOS High Sierra Patcher will render your iMac 8.1 Broadcom Wi-Fi chip useless for certain models.
Mac Os Sierra Early 2009 Edition
Macs that use the Broadcom BCM4321 Wi-Fi module will not have functional Wi-Fi when running High Sierra. Another issue that has been highlighted by the developer is that the trackpad in the MacBook 5,2 isn't fully supported in this version of OS.
These are just a few of the possible issues that could arise, and this is before even mentioning the various potential software errors that you can run into by using out-of-date hardware. Without getting the proper knowledge beforehand, you'll need to revert back to the previous state of the Mac, which won't be an easy process, especially not without a Time Machine backup.
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