My Macbook Air Wont Let Me Download Macos Sierra



Apple’s new macOS Mojave doesn’t support the old Macs prior to 2012. It was a shocking news for me too.

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I have an old, not for me actually, MacBook Pro which I purchased at the end of 2010. I was expecting Apple won’t drop the support of Mojave for MacBook Pro 2010 model, at least not for this time. But I was wrong. The latest Majove doesn’t support it too.

Open your Applications folder and look to see if you have the Install files for the version of macOS or Mac OS X you require. In the case of Sierra or High Sierra you'll see: something like this. Updating macOS can be a real chore sometimes, especially if you get stuck in an update loop because there isn’t enough free space. Some users started the update but found themselves stuck in this “boot loop” after it failed, returning to the update installer page every time their Mac booted up again. Note: For Mac High Sierra (10.13.x), you will need to click on Allow too. Click the lock icon again to prevent any further changes. Installing the Zoom application. Visit our Download Center. Under Zoom Client for Meetings, click Download. Double click the downloaded file. It is typically saved to your Downloads folder. Black Friday M1 Mac deals: $899 MacBook Air, $639 Mac mini, $1,199 new MacBook Pro Special discounts on Apple's brand new Macs deliver up to $100 in savings on the Late 2020 hardware. KennKaa, since you have tried downloading from your Purchases in the Mac App Store, this time, try clicking on the highlighted link below that takes you directly to the macOS Sierra page and click the download button. Get Sierra from the App Store. Search the App Store for macOS Sierra, or go directly to the macOS Sierra page.

There is no need to worry. Even the oldest Windows 95 can be installed on Mac computer. There is a solution to every problem.

I don’t want to upgrade my MacBook Pro right now, especially when a new model is rumored to be released in next month.

Another choice for me was to buy a graphics card which supports Metal. In fact, it was the most feasible solution for to get installed Majove on my unsupported Mac right now.

Metal is natively supported by all Macs introduced since 2012. It means the following Nvidia, AMD and Intel family cards are compatible.

-Intel HD Graphics 400, Iris 5000 & 6000 family

-Nvidia GT 600M, 700M family

-AMD R9 M family

To check which GPU (graphics processing unit) is installed on your Mac computer, click on the Apple icon in the top left corner and then click on “About This Mac”.

There are a number of third-party vendors which sell graphics cards with integrated Metal support specifically designed for Mac computers. While searching for a compatible graphics card, I found that I could install Mojave on my MacBook Pro Mid 2010 model by using a software known as macOS Mojave Patcher Tool. Kudos to DosDude1 who developed tested, and released it as a free app.

By using this software, we could install the latest macOS version on early 2008 Macs.

Here is the step by step method to run Mojave on unsupported Macs.

My Macbook Air Wont Let Me Download Macos Sierra

The whole process can be divided into four parts.

  • Part 1. Getting all the required things
  • Part 2. Downloading the macOS Mojave Installer App
  • Part 3. Making a bootable Mojave USB drive
  • Part 4. Installing and Patching Mojave OS on the unsupported computer

We will discuss each part in details in the following paragraphs.

Part 1: Requirements to Run Mojave on Old Macs

Four things are required to get macOS Mojave installed on your forgotten-by-Apple Mac.

  1. Your Mac computer

It could be an early-2008 or newer Mac Pro, iMac, or MacBook Pro. The following models include under this category.

– MacPro3,1
– MacPro4,1
– iMac8,1
– iMac9,1
– iMac10,x
– iMac11,x
– iMac12,x
– MacBookPro4,1
– MacBookPro5,x
– MacBookPro6,x
– MacBookPro7,1
– MacBookPro8,x

It could be late-2008 or newer MacBook Air or Aluminum Unibody MacBook. The following models include under this category:

– MacBookAir2,1
– MacBookAir3,x
– MacBookAir4,x
– MacBook5,1

It could be early-2009 or newer Mac Mini or white MacBook including the following models:

– Macmini3,1
– Macmini4,1
– Macmini5,x
– MacBook5,2
– MacBook6,1
– MacBook7,1

And it could be Xserve2, 1 and Xserver3, 1.

  1. A USB drive in 16GB size or above
  2. macOS Mojave patcher tool. Download it here.
  3. A copy of the Mojave software.

Part 2: Download macOS Mojave Installer Software

MacOS Mojave software can be downloaded as an Installer App from Mac App Store using the computer which supports Mojave.

If you don’t have Mojave supported Mac, you can download the Mojave Installer App using patcher tool. Open the macOS Mojave patcher tool. If it doesn’t open and says it is from an unidentified developer, right click on the tool’s icon and click on “Open” from sub-menu and then enter your Mac’s Admin name and password. After the verification, you can open it with the left double-click.

If you don’t remember your macOS password, here are the solutions to reset it.

Go to Tools in the Menu bar and then hit “Download macOS Mojave”.

I recommend using the built-in downloader tool because it will download the latest and the compatible Installer app.

Mojave Installer app is about 5-6GB in size and it may take some time depending on the speed of your internet.

If the internet connection interrupts while downloading the file, don’t worry. The downloading process will resume where it left. Simply download the Mojave software again but point it to the same location where you were already downloading and saving the installer app.

Part 3: Create a Bootable Mojave USB Drive

In order to create a bootable Mojave USB Installer drive, follow these steps.

Step 1: Insert 16GB or above USB drive into your USB port of your Mac.

Step 2: Open Disk Utility and erase the USB drive in OS X Extended (Journaled) format. Give a proper name before erasing. I gave the name “macOS Mojave” to my USB drive.

If you are new to Mac, get the basic information about how to make a Partition, erase the current partition and how to make a bootable USB drive.

Step 3: After the drive is erased, open “macOS Mojave Patcher” tool.

Step 4: Point the Patcher tool to the downloaded Mojave Installer app which is downloaded in Part 2.

Step 5: Now select the target USB drive you just formatted.

Step 6: Hit the “Start Operation” button on the patcher tool and let it make the USB bootable with Mojave.

Step 7: It will show “Complete” when the process is done.

Part 4: Installing and Patching macOS Mojave

My Macbook Air Won't Let Me Update Software

In this fourth and final part, we will install and patch the macOS Mojave on our old Mac computer. Follow the steps below to complete the remaining procedure.

Step 1. Restart your computer and hold down the “Option” key as soon as the Mac starts up.

Step 2: Select the USB drive, which was named as “macOS Mojave” as the startup disk.

Step 3: If you want to upgrade your current macOS to macOS Mojave, simply use the continue button to proceed and follow step 5. But if you want to install it on another partition or want to erase the current partition first, then follow the Step 4.

Step 4: Open Disk Utility from the bottom left panel.

Select the volume you want to erase. Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Or if you have got late-2009 and later machines with SSD drives, you can also use APFS format.

If you don’t want to install Mojave on current volume, you can also create a new partition and install it there. Mojave takes approximately 18GB space on hard drive. So at least make a 25GB partition to test the new macOS.

If you want to use it for all routine work, set the partition size according to your needs.

Step 5: Select the volume and press “Continue” to begin the installation process.

Step 6: The installation process takes about 20 minutes to complete. When it is done, reboot your Mac back into installer drive while holding down the “Option” key again.

Step 7: This time select “macOS Post Install” app from the bottom left panel.

Step 8: Select the model of your computer and the volume on which you installed Mojave and then click the “Patch” button. The tool will automatically select the required patches according to the model of your computer.

Step 9: Press the “Reboot” button when the patch is complete.

My Macbook Air Won't Let Me Download Macos Sierra A 10 13

Step 10: The computer will reboot with macOS Mojave installed on it.

Step 11. If it doesn’t work properly on the restart, boot your Mac back into the installer USB drive, select macOS Post Install again, and this time also select “Force Cache Rebuild” option. Once the patch is complete and the cache is rebuilt, reboot.

Step 12: Upon restart, complete the setup process and start using your Mac with a Mojave operating system.

Happy Mojaving!!

My Macbook Air Won't Let Me Download Macos Sierra Installer

For additional information and to know more about the known issues, please visit DosDune1’s website. He is an awesome guy.

Note: You will see a new “Patch Updater” app in the Applications under “Other” folder. It will alert you when new patches are available for your computer.

My Macbook Air Won't Let Me Download Macos Sierra On A Windows 10

Your Mac will get the future Mojave updates as other supported computer do. If you don’t see the updates, or your computer doesn’t work properly after applying the update, use the step 11 of Part 4 to enable all patches.