It could be helpful to know where you sit on the timeline of macOS X updates. OS X Snow Leopard ships as a boxed version and requires a disk drive to install. The earliest versions, OS X Lion and OS X Mountain Lion are available on the Apple Store’s website and arrive to you via email for download.

If your goal is to download a version of macOS that you have not already used, or, that was not available as an update from the App Store after you bought your Mac, you may need to purchase it. Click the Install button next to the macOS you want to download. On older versions, you can find the previous versions of OS X installed on your Mac by opening the App Store > Applications and viewing your Purchase page. Once you have space on your computer, figure out what version of OS X you would like to install.

To uninstall certain apps, find the Uninstaller tab and select the apps you haven’t been using for a while. Review Details to see the list of suggested optimizations.Optimizing your Mac with CleanMyMac X is effortless: To make things easy, use a specialized app like CleanMyMac X that will quickly free up space by detecting unused apps and large files, and offering to completely delete them, with all their hidden corresponding files, in one quick click. Depending on how tidy your Mac is, this might take quite a bit of time. You can, of course, do so manually by deleting unused files and uninstalling old software to free up disk space. You’ll need at least eight gigabytes of storage, depending on which macOS you downgrade to.Įven if you do have enough space, it’s a good idea to clean your computer before installing the desired operating system. On macOS Ventura, the flow is slightly different: open System Settings and head over to Storage. Tabbing over to Storage will let you know how much disk space you have available. Make sure you are ready to downgrade your operating system by checking what macOS version you currently use and ensuring you have enough hard drive room to download an older version.Ĭlick Apple in the top left corner of your screen and choose About This Mac. In this article, we’ll take you through everything you need to download and install an old OS X on your Mac.

Try free ✕ How to install old OS X on your MacĪlthough you might think that going back to the old macOS is not possible by looking at the App Store Updates tab, it’s actually quite easy to do.

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