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So, you’ve decided to download an older version of Mac OS X. There are many reasons that could point you to this radical decision. To begin with, some of your apps may not be working properly (or simply crash) on newer operating systems. Also, you may have noticed your Mac’s performance went down right after the last update. Finally, if you want to run a parallel copy of Mac OS X on a virtual machine, you too will need a working installation file of an older Mac OS X. Further down we’ll explain where to get one and what problems you may face down the road.

Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion v. 10.8.5 Full OS Install - Reinstall / Recovery Upgrade Downgrade / Repair Utility Factory Reset Disk Drive Disc CD DVD Brand: Fast Macs Repair 3.9 out of 5 stars 98 ratings. If you need to purchase Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, you can order it from this page. The current version of the Mac operating system is macOS Catalina. To learn more, please click here. What you receive: An email with a content code for the Mac App Store. Mountain Lion Compatible Macs More precisely than the official info, the following list of Macs support OS X Mountain Lion, provided that they have 2 GB of memory, at least 8 GB of available storage space, and are running Mac OS X 10.6.8 'Snow Leopard' or later, which includes any version of OS X 10.7 'Lion.'

A list of all Mac OS X versions

Mac Os X Mountain Lion

We’ll be repeatedly referring to these Apple OS versions below, so it’s good to know the basic macOS timeline.

Cheetah 10.0Puma 10.1Jaguar 10.2
Panther 10.3Tiger 10.4Leopard 10.5
Snow Leopard 10.6Lion 10.7Mountain Lion 10.8
Mavericks 10.9Yosemite 10.10El Capitan 10.11
Sierra 10.12High Sierra 10.13Mojave 10.14
Catalina 10.15

STEP 1. Prepare your Mac for installation

Given your Mac isn’t new and is filled with data, you will probably need enough free space on your Mac. This includes not just space for the OS itself but also space for other applications and your user data. One more argument is that the free space on your disk translates into virtual memory so your apps have “fuel” to operate on. The chart below tells you how much free space is needed.

Note, that it is recommended that you install OS on a clean drive. Next, you will need enough disk space available, for example, to create Recovery Partition. Here are some ideas to free up space on your drive:

  • Uninstall large unused apps
  • Empty Trash Bin and Downloads
  • Locate the biggest files on your computer:

Go to Finder > All My Files > Arrange by size
Then you can move your space hoggers onto an external drive or a cloud storage.
If you aren’t comfortable with cleaning the Mac manually, there are some nice automatic “room cleaners”. Our favorite is CleanMyMac as it’s most simple to use of all. It deletes system junk, old broken apps, and the rest of hidden junk on your drive.

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.4 - 10.8 (free version)

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.9 (free version)

Download CleanMyMac for OS 10.10 - 10.14 (free version)

STEP 2. Get a copy of Mac OS X download

Normally, it is assumed that updating OS is a one-way road. That’s why going back to a past Apple OS version is problematic. The main challenge is to download the OS installation file itself, because your Mac may already be running a newer version. If you succeed in downloading the OS installation, your next step is to create a bootable USB or DVD and then reinstall the OS on your computer.

How to download older Mac OS X versions via the App Store


If you once had purchased an old version of Mac OS X from the App Store, open it and go to the Purchased tab. There you’ll find all the installers you can download. However, it doesn’t always work that way. The purchased section lists only those operating systems that you had downloaded in the past. But here is the path to check it:

  1. Click the App Store icon.
  2. Click Purchases in the top menu.
  3. Scroll down to find the preferred OS X version.
  4. Click Download.

This method allows you to download Mavericks and Yosemite by logging with your Apple ID — only if you previously downloaded them from the Mac App Store.

Without App Store: Download Mac OS version as Apple Developer

If you are signed with an Apple Developer account, you can get access to products that are no longer listed on the App Store. If you desperately need a lower OS X version build, consider creating a new Developer account among other options. The membership cost is $99/year and provides a bunch of perks unavailable to ordinary users.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that if you visit developer.apple.com/downloads, you can only find 10.3-10.6 OS X operating systems there. Newer versions are not available because starting Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.7, the App Store has become the only source of updating Apple OS versions.

Purchase an older version of Mac operating system

You can purchase a boxed or email version of past Mac OS X directly from Apple. Both will cost you around $20. For the reason of being rather antiquated, Snow Leopard and earlier Apple versions can only be installed from DVD.

Buy a boxed edition of Snow Leopard 10.6
Get an email copy of Lion 10.7
Get an email copy of Mountain Lion 10.8

The email edition comes with a special download code you can use for the Mac App Store. Note, that to install the Lion or Mountain Lion, your Mac needs to be running Snow Leopard so you can install the newer OS on top of it.

How to get macOS El Capitan download

If you are wondering if you can run El Capitan on an older Mac, rejoice as it’s possible too. But before your Mac can run El Capitan it has to be updated to OS X 10.6.8. So, here are main steps you should take:

1. Install Snow Leopard from install DVD.
2. Update to 10.6.8 using Software Update.
3. Download El Capitan here.

“I can’t download an old version of Mac OS X”

If you have a newer Mac, there is no physical option to install Mac OS versions older than your current Mac model. For instance, if your MacBook was released in 2014, don’t expect it to run any OS released prior of that time, because older Apple OS versions simply do not include hardware drivers for your Mac.

Mac Os X Mountain Lion

But as it often happens, workarounds are possible. There is still a chance to download the installation file if you have an access to a Mac (or virtual machine) running that operating system. For example, to get an installer for Lion, you may ask a friend who has Lion-operated Mac or, once again, set up a virtual machine running Lion. Then you will need to prepare an external drive to download the installation file using OS X Utilities.

After you’ve completed the download, the installer should launch automatically, but you can click Cancel and copy the file you need. Below is the detailed instruction how to do it.

STEP 3. Install older OS X onto an external drive

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The following method allows you to download Mac OS X Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks.

  1. Start your Mac holding down Command + R.
  2. Prepare a clean external drive (at least 10 GB of storage).
  3. Within OS X Utilities, choose Reinstall OS X.
  4. Select external drive as a source.
  5. Enter your Apple ID.

Now the OS should start downloading automatically onto the external drive. After the download is complete, your Mac will prompt you to do a restart, but at this point, you should completely shut it down. Now that the installation file is “captured” onto your external drive, you can reinstall the OS, this time running the file on your Mac.

  1. Boot your Mac from your standard drive.
  2. Connect the external drive.
  3. Go to external drive > OS X Install Data.

Locate InstallESD.dmg disk image file — this is the file you need to reinstall Lion OS X. The same steps are valid for Mountain Lion and Mavericks.

How to downgrade a Mac running later macOS versions

If your Mac runs macOS Sierra 10.12 or macOS High Sierra 10.13, it is possible to revert it to the previous system if you are not satisfied with the experience. You can do it either with Time Machine or by creating a bootable USB or external drive.
Instruction to downgrade from macOS Sierra

Instruction to downgrade from macOS High Sierra

Download

Instruction to downgrade from macOS Mojave

Instruction to downgrade from macOS Catalina

Before you do it, the best advice is to back your Mac up so your most important files stay intact. In addition to that, it makes sense to clean up your Mac from old system junk files and application leftovers. The easiest way to do it is to run CleanMyMac X on your machine (download it for free here).

Visit your local Apple Store to download older OS X version

If none of the options to get older OS X worked, pay a visit to nearest local Apple Store. They should have image installations going back to OS Leopard and earlier. You can also ask their assistance to create a bootable USB drive with the installation file. So here you are. We hope this article has helped you to download an old version of Mac OS X. Below are a few more links you may find interesting.

Apple's traditional desktop computing business has suffered many indignities over the past decade. Once Apple's flagship product line, the Mac first found itself playing second fiddle to the iPod—a mere music player—in the early 2000s. Today, matters are worse; on a graph of Apple's revenues, the Mac now appears as a thin strip of earth while iOS devices are the mountain that sits upon it.

Apple presented last year's release of OS X 10.7 Lion as part of a turn 'back to the Mac.' Ostensibly, the tagline was Apple's promise to bring innovations from its mobile operating system back to Mac OS X. But more broadly, it also meant that the Mac would receive more of Apple's attention.

That attention resulted in some dramatic changes to aspects of the operating system that had not been reconsidered in decades: application launching, the document model, process management—even basics like window resizing and scrolling. As Apple's newly refocused gaze fell upon its desktop operating system, many parts of it were deemed archaic and unworthy of continued existence.

At the end of last year's Lion review, I concluded: '[Lion] marks the point where Mac OS X releases stop being defined by what's been added. From now on, Mac OS X should be judged by what's been removed.' Unfortunately, the surgery was not a complete success. There were… complications.

Sins of the father

Apple's intentions were noble. Lion's new features said all the right things: 'Stop worrying about saving your documents; Lion's got you covered. You don't need to keep track of how many applications are running; let the OS handle those details for you. Don't bother mucking around in the Finder, your applications are only a few clicks away. And scroll bars? Getting them out of your face is like a breath of fresh air. Trust me, this is going to be awesome.'

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Some longtime Mac users rejected Apple's premise that these things needed to be fixed. I am not among them—nor, I suspect, are the many millions of people who have been introduced to Apple through an iOS device. For most people, the problems Apple tried to address in Lion were real. The solutions, however, had some rough edges.

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And then there were the bugs—oh, the bugs! It's been common for 10.x.0 releases of Mac OS X to have bugs related to new functionality. These bugs are usually fixed quickly, with most disappearing in the 10.x.1 and 10.x.2 releases. Lion differed in both the nature and longevity of its bugs. Bugs in basic functionality like WiFi connectivity and Web browser stability bedeviled many Lion users, and it took Apple several releases over many long months to address the worst of them.

The theme underlying nearly all of Lion's changes was that the Mac could learn a thing or two from iOS. This theme didn't just influence the conceptual foundations of the OS (e.g., that users should not have to worry about saving documents or conserving resources by quitting applications), it also reached all the way up to specific details of the user interface and graphical design (e.g., the newly skeuomorphic versions of iCal and Address Book).

These user-visible changes also met with much resistance—again, some of it knee-jerk, but much of it justified, especially in cases where the changes significantly reduced functionality or made features more difficult to find.

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Second bite at the apple

Enter OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Apple made a half-hearted attempt to brand 10.7 as 'OS X Lion,' but the 'Mac' prefix was far from completely expunged at launch. This is the first of many areas where Mountain Lion aims to succeed where its predecessor failed, so 'OS X Mountain Lion' it is—emphatically, universally, with a bullet.

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The final piece of Apple's renewed focus on the Mac is the uncharacteristically pre-announced move to annual releases of OS X. So not only did Mountain Lion have to correct Lion's missteps, it had only one year of development time to do so. Furthermore, unlike the last OS X release that just added a modifier to its predecessor's name, Mountain Lion doesn't have the luxury of focusing solely on refinement and internal changes. It has to move the ball forward… hopefully with fewer fumbles than Lion.

But hang on a second. For a desktop OS in the year 2012, which direction is 'forward,' anyway? The obvious answer is 'toward iOS,' but Lion proved that it's not quite that simple. And really, there has to be more to it than compulsive imitation, otherwise why continue development of the Mac platform at all?

Mountain Lion is Apple's answer to all these questions. It is the digital manifestation of Apple's belief that the Mac is still relevant, that it can be made better than it was before. In some ways, I feel the same as I did over a decade ago when considering a new version of OS X: I want to believe.

Mac Os X Mountain Lion

Table of Contents

Mac Os X Mountain Lion 10.8 Download Free

  • Introduction
  • Interface
  • Applications
  • iCloud
    • A cloud in three parts
  • Gatekeeper
  • Missing pieces
  • Grab bag
    • System Preferences