Easily check which versions of mac OS, iOS, iPadOS, or watchOS are compatible with your Mac model or iDevice. Guide includes OS X 10.8.x to macOS 11.0.x. MacOS Big Sur elevates the most advanced desktop operating system in the world to a new level of power and beauty. Experience Mac to the fullest with a refined new design. Enjoy the biggest Safari update ever. Discover new features for Maps and Messages. And get even more transparency around your privacy. Come on, respond to this simple open question: Which is, for you, the best Mac OS X version ever released? Please dont answer the next one ( next year release). I prefer by now OS X Lion because is some different from Snow Leopard. Next Montain Lion o Mavericks didnt have news functions that. As you can see from the list above, with the exception of the first OS X beta, all versions of the Mac operating system from 2001 to 2012 were all named after big cats, from Cheetah to Panther to.
Just because you're running the latest version of OS X doesn't mean that you can't downgrade to older versions. Here's how and where to download older OS X versions for your Mac.
We've discussed how to downgrade to older versions of OS X on our sister site Gotta Be Mobile, but we've really only covered how to downgrade to the previous version, rather than older versions that might be a few years old.
It is possible to downgrade OS X to an older version that's even older than the previous version of your current operating system on your Mac.
However, it's important to note that not all OS X versions ever made are still available, and not all of the available OS X versions are free, unless you already have a copy of one.
Of course, there are many reasons why you might want to downgrade to an older version of OS X. It would most likely be due to performance issues, as an older Mac could have problems running the latest version of OS X, so downgrading to an older version could help with that.
If you're in that boat and are wanting to move your Mac to an older version of OS X, here's how to download older OS X versions.
OS X Yosemite
The only old version of OS X that's available for free and as a digital download is OS X Yosemite, which is the previous version before OS X El Capitan.
If your Mac ran OS X Yosemite at any point in the past, you can re-download it from the Mac App Store.
To do this, open up the App Store on your Mac, which can be found in the Applications folder. From there, click on the Purchased tab at the top and then find OS X Yosemite in the list.
To the right of it, click on Download to begin downloading it to your Mac. The downloaded file will be placed in the Applications folder, but you can move it anywhere on your Mac, even to an external hard drive or flash drive.
Older OS X Versions
If you want download an even older version of OS X that's older than OS X Yosemite, there are a few versions available from Apple.
Unfortunately, OS X Mavericks is unavailable, but OS X Mountain Lion, OS X Lion, and OS X Snow Leopard are all available.
However, the only caveat is that they cost $20 each and must be purchased in disc form on Apple's website. The good news is that free shipping is available.
All three of these OS X versions costed $20 when they first released, and it looks like Apple isn't backing down from that price, even after several years, but that's still a rather small price to pay to get an older version of OS X that you've desperately been wanting.
With the disc versions, you'll obviously need a disc drive in order to use them and install that version of OS X on your computer. Of course, all computers that support the older versions most likely already have disc drives anyway.
Keep in mind that Apple doesn't recommend installing older versions of OS X on newer Macs. In other words, if you own a Mac that came out well after OS X Lion's reign, it's not recommended to install that version on your Mac, as you could come across several incompatibilities. It's possible, but not without some caveats.
With that said, it's better to stick with the oldest version that your Mac can officially support. For instance, my late-2013 laptop was released around the time that OS X Mavericks was released, so it wouldn't be a good idea to try and install OS X Mountain Lion on it, but rather OS X Mavericks. However, since Mavericks is no longer available, OS X Yosemite would be the oldest available version that I could download.
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The only old version of OS X that's available for free and as a digital download is OS X Yosemite, which is the previous version before OS X El Capitan.
If your Mac ran OS X Yosemite at any point in the past, you can re-download it from the Mac App Store.
To do this, open up the App Store on your Mac, which can be found in the Applications folder. From there, click on the Purchased tab at the top and then find OS X Yosemite in the list.
To the right of it, click on Download to begin downloading it to your Mac. The downloaded file will be placed in the Applications folder, but you can move it anywhere on your Mac, even to an external hard drive or flash drive.
Older OS X Versions
If you want download an even older version of OS X that's older than OS X Yosemite, there are a few versions available from Apple.
Unfortunately, OS X Mavericks is unavailable, but OS X Mountain Lion, OS X Lion, and OS X Snow Leopard are all available.
However, the only caveat is that they cost $20 each and must be purchased in disc form on Apple's website. The good news is that free shipping is available.
All three of these OS X versions costed $20 when they first released, and it looks like Apple isn't backing down from that price, even after several years, but that's still a rather small price to pay to get an older version of OS X that you've desperately been wanting.
With the disc versions, you'll obviously need a disc drive in order to use them and install that version of OS X on your computer. Of course, all computers that support the older versions most likely already have disc drives anyway.
Keep in mind that Apple doesn't recommend installing older versions of OS X on newer Macs. In other words, if you own a Mac that came out well after OS X Lion's reign, it's not recommended to install that version on your Mac, as you could come across several incompatibilities. It's possible, but not without some caveats.
With that said, it's better to stick with the oldest version that your Mac can officially support. For instance, my late-2013 laptop was released around the time that OS X Mavericks was released, so it wouldn't be a good idea to try and install OS X Mountain Lion on it, but rather OS X Mavericks. However, since Mavericks is no longer available, OS X Yosemite would be the oldest available version that I could download.
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Prior to OS X, Apple had a rock solid operating system that was fast and stable, but by the time Mac OS 9 was released in 1999, it was looking very dull and dated, especially compared to what Microsoft was offering in the shape of Windows NT 4 (released July 1996), Windows 98 (released June 1998), and Windows 2000 (released February 2000).
In my opinion, Windows 2000 was one of the best versions of Windows ever released: graphically pleasing (for its time) and built on NT rather than 9x, making it rock solid and very fast.
Mac OS 9 was very space efficient but already looked dated when released in 1999.
Apple had been working on what would become Mac OS X since 1996, when it purchased NeXT. The next few years would see Apple transform it into a Mac operating system running on PowerPC hardware, and Apple released the Public Beta of Mac OS X in 2000.
This article is about Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, but to fully appreciate it you need to have transitioned through earlier versions.
OS X Before Tiger
Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah
Wow! was my first impression of OS X. Coming from the dull and clunky looking OS 9, this new OS was slick, animated, transparent, and absolutely gorgeous – albeit not quite fully functional and missing a few things.
OS X 10.0 Cheetah (released in March 2001) was the first official release version, but it was not much better than the Public Beta. 10.1 Puma (Sept. 2001) was released as a free upgrade to 10.0. It was an improvement. It featured bug fixes, speed improvement, and more customisation.
OS X 10.2 Jaguar (August 2002) was the first version I would call useable as a main OS, but it was still clunky and slow. 10.3 Panther (October 2003) was steadily making progress and was a massive improvement over 10.2. It was faster but still clunky in my opinion. It was the first version of OS X to increase its hardware requirements, requiring built-in USB – and thus cutting out some very early G3s (although easily worked around).
Mac OS X 10.3 Panther
Enter Tiger
Then on April 29, 2005, Apple released Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. This was a landmark version. At a running time of 30 months, it is also the longest serving version of OS X ever released, which just adds to the fact that it is an amazing OS. Tiger once again increased hardware requirements, requiring built-in FireWire, 256 MB RAM, and by default a DVD drive (although a CD version could be order from Apple), although this is also easily worked around.
For the most part, OS X 10.0 through 10.4 could run on the same hardware, apart from the extra port requirements, but hiking up minimum hardware requirements was a trend Apple would follow with the next versions of OS X.
Os X Versions Download
Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger
Which chrome do i have. With Tiger, Apple really turned OS X around. It was faster, more streamlined, incredibly stable, and added Spotlight, Dashboard and widgets, and Automator, as well as new graphics processing systems in the form of Core Image and Core Video. It also improved a number of previously introduced apps and features.
Os X Versions Wikipedia
A long debated topic (even today) is Panther vs. Tiger, with many claiming Panther is faster and more stable than Tiger, to which I totally disagree. Panther came with my eMac G4 in 2004, and compared to it running Tiger, Panther was slow and clunky. I have since run Tiger on every compatible Mac I have owned, including G3 iMacs and iBooks. Tiger even ran better Panther on a Lombard PowerBook G3, which doesn't officially support it.
Tiger for Intel Macs
Os X Versions For Mac
With the switch to Intel processors in 2006, Apple revealed it had been secretly working on Intel versions of OS X from the beginning, and OS X 10.4.4 was the first Intel version. The versatility of Tiger can be seen in the fact that it can run on a 300 MHz G3 all the way up to a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo (the 24″ Mid 2007 Intel iMac, which was one of the last Macs to be sold with Tiger).
Unlike OS X 10.5 Leopard, which replaced Tiger in October 2007, there were two separate versions of OS X 10.4 – one for PowerPC Macs, the other for Intel Macs. Although there were universal binary applications that could run on both platforms, Mac OS X did not become PPC/Intel universal until Leopard arrived.
OS X Landmarks
There are two landmark versions of OS X, ones that have been hard to pull developers and end users away from. One of them is Tiger, the last version to support Classic Mode (but only on PowerPC Macs). The other is OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which is Intel only and the last version to support PowerPC apps. Both have a strong following of users who either can't upgrade to 10.5 Leopard (which is not compatible with G3s) and 10.7 Lion (which requires a Core 2 Duo or newer Intel CPU and was the first version of OS X without support for PowerPC software) respectively, think their hardware would run less efficiently or would kill off their current versions of software.
Tiger holds a special place for me. Being a low-end Mac user, most of my Macs have been unable to run anything higher, meaning I held on to it longer than most versions of OS X. Computing progress forces people to move on, and Leopard is a great OS, but it raised the bar immensely in terms of hardware requirements, and then Snow Leopard dropped the whole PowerPC architecture, leaving Tiger even further behind.
Apple will have to try hard to match the excellence of Tiger in future operating systems. Snow Leopard is a worthy runner up, but it falls short of the vast hardware range supported by Tiger.
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