How to install Mojave on unsupported Macs
You'll need a very good reason and it'd be best if you didn't do it on your main Mac. However, installing Mojave on some older Macs can be done -- and fairly easily. AppleInsider explains if you really must know.
This year's macOS Mojave beta, and subsequent update, won't run and can't be installed on any Mac older than about 2012 -- or so Apple thinks. However, if you're the sort to believe that every year Apple tries to force everyone to buy new Macs, and you also forget that 2012 was six years ago, you're in luck.
But, there is now a way to ignore Apple and install macOS Mojave on any Mac you like. Or at least any Mac you like back to around 2008.
There are exceptions. The new and most utterly not Apple supported macOS Mojave Patcher Tool will even go back to 2007 if you have a very specific iMac that you've already upgraded in a very specific way. That said, Apple's official list also has exceptions: if you have the right Mac Pro you can install Mojave on even a mid-2010 machine.
We get that you may well not be able to afford a new Mac. These are far from cheap machines. Plus even a ten-year-old MacBook Pro is a good computer and we'd not be at all surprised if you were still getting great use out of it.
We would just then be surprised that you want to risk that great use by installing a macOS update that it can't handle.
Doubtlessly the tool is a clever piece of programming that is be far beyond our skill, but ultimately it just does one thing -- it prevents Apple's macOS installation tool from spotting that the machine you're using is too old.
Other than that, it takes macOS Mojave and installs it on a drive. But, if you're now wondering where it gets Mojave from, you've spotted a potential hang-up in the process.
To get a copy of macOS Mojave to install on an unsupported Mac, you have to be in the Apple Beta program but more importantly than that, you have to download it on a supported Mac.
So, unless you've got friends who have newer Macs yet not enough conscience to warn you off this idea because it is potentially hazardous to your data and hardware, you've got to personally have a Mojave-capable Mac. If you have, go ahead, use Mojave on that.
Normally we'd be hesitant about that too. Apple's macOS, like any operating system, is so complex that it's bound to have some problems on older gear. Every year we generally advise you to wait a little while before installing the final version. Every year we also point out that installing the beta is fine so long as you do it on a spare Mac.
We say both of those things about Macs that are supposed to be able to run these things. Even when they are, the advice to wait for a while after official release is a good suggestion. The advice to stay away from the beta versions entirely on a critical work machine is more like a firm rule.
If you use this tool to install macOS Mojave on a Mac that Apple itself says won't work, you can't honestly expect a great experience. You're not going to transform that brilliant 2008 MacBook Air into a 2018 model. You're more likely to transform it into a somewhat less brilliant 2008 brick under more load than the hardware should have to bear.
It is good to have the same macOS on all of your machines, and it's even slightly disorientating when you're swapping between Mojave and Sierra. However, take the disorientation because it's better than having no functioning Mac at all.
One more thing. If you do use this patch tool to install macOS Mojave on your main Mac, please remember that you can still read AppleInsider on your iPhone if things go awry.
This year's macOS Mojave beta, and subsequent update, won't run and can't be installed on any Mac older than about 2012 -- or so Apple thinks. However, if you're the sort to believe that every year Apple tries to force everyone to buy new Macs, and you also forget that 2012 was six years ago, you're in luck.
But, there is now a way to ignore Apple and install macOS Mojave on any Mac you like. Or at least any Mac you like back to around 2008.
There are exceptions. The new and most utterly not Apple supported macOS Mojave Patcher Tool will even go back to 2007 if you have a very specific iMac that you've already upgraded in a very specific way. That said, Apple's official list also has exceptions: if you have the right Mac Pro you can install Mojave on even a mid-2010 machine.
We get that you may well not be able to afford a new Mac. These are far from cheap machines. Plus even a ten-year-old MacBook Pro is a good computer and we'd not be at all surprised if you were still getting great use out of it.
We would just then be surprised that you want to risk that great use by installing a macOS update that it can't handle.
On your own head and someone else's hard drive
The Mojave Patcher Tool for Unsupported Macs is available for download from DosDude1. This is the same guy that did this for High Sierra, and has supplied a series of other hacks and workarounds for fans of older Apple hardware.Doubtlessly the tool is a clever piece of programming that is be far beyond our skill, but ultimately it just does one thing -- it prevents Apple's macOS installation tool from spotting that the machine you're using is too old.
Other than that, it takes macOS Mojave and installs it on a drive. But, if you're now wondering where it gets Mojave from, you've spotted a potential hang-up in the process.
To get a copy of macOS Mojave to install on an unsupported Mac, you have to be in the Apple Beta program but more importantly than that, you have to download it on a supported Mac.
So, unless you've got friends who have newer Macs yet not enough conscience to warn you off this idea because it is potentially hazardous to your data and hardware, you've got to personally have a Mojave-capable Mac. If you have, go ahead, use Mojave on that.
Normally we'd be hesitant about that too. Apple's macOS, like any operating system, is so complex that it's bound to have some problems on older gear. Every year we generally advise you to wait a little while before installing the final version. Every year we also point out that installing the beta is fine so long as you do it on a spare Mac.
We say both of those things about Macs that are supposed to be able to run these things. Even when they are, the advice to wait for a while after official release is a good suggestion. The advice to stay away from the beta versions entirely on a critical work machine is more like a firm rule.
If you use this tool to install macOS Mojave on a Mac that Apple itself says won't work, you can't honestly expect a great experience. You're not going to transform that brilliant 2008 MacBook Air into a 2018 model. You're more likely to transform it into a somewhat less brilliant 2008 brick under more load than the hardware should have to bear.
It is good to have the same macOS on all of your machines, and it's even slightly disorientating when you're swapping between Mojave and Sierra. However, take the disorientation because it's better than having no functioning Mac at all.
One more thing. If you do use this patch tool to install macOS Mojave on your main Mac, please remember that you can still read AppleInsider on your iPhone if things go awry.
Comments
Priceless.
I’m definitely going to be making the step to Mojave. I wrote him a while back hoping he would be providing a new patcher, and it sure looks like he resolved the issues he mentioned he was having.
I won’t be installing the beta, but once the Gold Master release has been out for 2 or 3 weeks and the first round of fixes have been made, I’m going for it. I should note that I’ve got two much more recent desktop Macs I’ll be updating the old-fashioned, Apple-approved way… I would not recommend running the patcher on your primary lose-it-and-die computer. There’s too much at stake.
Still, everything’s gone smoothly on the High Sierra version. Kudos to DosDude!
I'd give proper attribution to conversation about Mojave on Unsupported Macs being an active discussion hosted by Dosdude on Macrumors.com. Yes, it's a competitor but much of the information needed to be successful about doing this patch is found in the pages and pages of discussion amongst the users as bugs are crushed and more machines are added to the compatibility (or partial compatibility) list. It's no different than when you attribute a store broken by another website or news outlet. Just referring to Dosdude's own download page doesn't get around that fact.
Apple keeps shortening the support time. Logic's demand of Sierra or High Sierra was an annoyance to many Logic users.
This pressure to upgrade has been getting worse because of iOS devices and iOS has an incredibly annoying nag to upgrade. I'm not happy about Apple's choices and it makes it very difficult for their customers to maintain a functioning "Apple ecosystem" unless they're wealthy enough to repeatedly re-buy effectively the same devices every two or three years. It didn't used to be the case that you had to be wealthy to be an Apple user (just judicious spending and saving), but Apple's ecosystem is exactly designed to encourage, or push, people into multiple Apple devices, and upgrade each one more often. This is bad for consumers and they're too arrogant and too big to notice this. Eventually it will lose them customers and they don't care to watch out for this at this time.
Granted, they did just take some action to possibly pull back on this a bit, with promoting iOS 12 as being faster on older devices (I've avoided iOS 11 but I might go to iOS 12). They need to do more of this, on all platforms.
Users are welcome to -- and should -- use Google to seek information on any workaround we publish, or to seek amplifying information on tips.
discovery that Apple has not rewritten this using Metal, just preferring to delete the OpenGL drivers
for ye olde "unsupported" Macs instead. (So far, to Public Beta 3, anyway.)
Turns out the OpenGL drivers and other kernel extensions (kexts) can be re-animated from older macOS releases
with the requisite incantations.
There are some issues with hardware acceleration for certain machines which use AMD GPUs,
but for stuff like the antique 2010 17" MacBookPro6,1 using Nvidia 330M, or even a garden-variety
2008 MacBook5,1 using Geforce 9400M it runs great!
It's amazing that a 10-year-old machine like my 2.4GHz 2008 MacBook using the mighty Intel Core 2 Duo
(with user-replaceable SSD and maxed-out 8GB memory) can run the new release perfectly fine!
This!
Ending support for my 2011 iMac will probably eventually put me on a new Windows machine. It’ll start with Boot Camp, and then, at some point, I’ll want to stay with what “I know” but will need something faster.
Wait, what do you mean here?