Written by
Vain RoweSummary: If Apple drops your Mac model to run macOS Sequoia officially, you've clicked on the very post, which tells you how to install macOS Sequoia on an unsupported Mac. Before the installation, please use iBoysoft DiskGeeker to clean junk for more available space to place macOS Sequoia.
Following its annual tradition, Apple releases its new and long-awaited Mac operating system -- macOS Sequoia this fall. This new macOS lineup can be seen and experienced in GUI, which has new functionality and amazing features. Excitingly fans and users of macOS are desperate to get a taste of this brand-new operating system.
With each release of macOS, however, Apple drops support to some old hardware yearly, making these so-called old Mac models unsupported by macOS Sequoia officially. If you got a Mac shipped many years ago and still have a curiosity about macOS Sequoia, you can read this article, which explores how to install macOS Sequoia on an unsupported Mac with an elaborate and step-wise guideline.
This post contains so many details and tips for the macOS Sequoia install is a little bit time-wasting and tricky, so please be patient and follow this guide to go through the whole process.
Preparations before the macOS Sequoia install
Before the macOS installation, there are some requirements that you need to complete:
- A working internet connection
- A 16GB or larger USB flash drive
- A Mac running macOS Mojave or later
Preparation 1: Check your Mac model
Let's check your Mac model and see if it is supported by Apple for running macOS Sequoia officially. If it is, installing macOS Sequoia is as simple as ABC:
Apple Menu > About This Mac > Overview, and then you can see the Mac model presented in the Overview tab.
Check if your Mac is officially compatible with macOS Sequoia:
- iMac (2019 and later): iMac19,x; iMac20,x
- iMac Pro (2017): iMacPro1,1
- MacBook Air (2020 and later): MacBookAir9,1
- MacBook Pro (2018 and later): MacBookPro15,x; MacBookPro16,x
- Mac Mini (2018 and later)
- Mac Pro (2019 and later): MacPro7,1
- Mac Studio (all models)
If you, luckily, have a Mac model listed in the supported type, you can go to Apple Menu > System Settings > General > Software Update to download this new OS. Alternatively, you can go to the App Store to carry out this update straightforwardly!
There are effective fixes for the issue can't download macOS Sequoia in Software Update. Follow this post to solve the macOS Sequoia downloading problem and the received error messages like an error occurred while downloading the selected updates.
If your Mac model is listed in the unsupported device table, you can still experience macOS Sequoia by installing it on your machine with the assistance of this post!
There are Macs that are dropped by Apple with no official support to run macOS Sequoia:
- iMac: 2018 and earlier
- Mac Studio: 2021 and earlier
- MacBook Air: 2019 and earlier
- Mac Mini: 2017 and earlier
- MacBook Pro: 2017 and earlier
- Mac Pro: 2018 and earlier
Preparation 2: Completely back up your Mac
Unlike installing macOS Sequoia on a supported Mac, installing macOS Sequoia on an old Mac will wipe the Mac, leaving you no files or folders. For a chance to roll back to the previous versions, it's highly suggested to back up your Mac thoroughly.
You can back up your Mac by enabling Time Machine or upload wanted files to cloud storage. But the best way we recommend is to let iBoysoft DiskGeeker clone the whole startup disk to an external hard drive as the backup, including the system files, settings, apps, etc. accumulated on the source hard disk.
It assists in cloning the source drive to the target one bit by bit and sector by sector in a fast and stable manner, which saves much more time and effort than backing up your Mac manually.
With a full backup, you can rest assured and proceed with the macOS Sequoia installation as you always get a chance to restore to the previous OS.
Preparation 3: Check if the storage is enough to install macOS Sequoia
Many users get stuck in the macOS Sequoia installation by a message saying "Your disk does not have enough free space. Updating requires 14.7 GB of disk space." which infers that there is not enough space to install macOS Sequoia on your Mac.
To avoid such trouble, you'd better check the available storage on your hard drive. 14.7 GB of space size is an absolute minimum while 30GB is better for smooth performance and user experience.
Go to Apple Menu > About This Mac > Storage to see how much available space is left. If it is about or less than 14.7 GB, you ought to free up Macintosh HD for more available space immediately!
Letting iBoysoft DiskGeeker's clean junk feature is a nice option. It scans all files and folders scattered on your hard drive and lists them in a visual table for you to know what swallows up your hard drive!
With all these preparations done, it's time to dig deep into how to install macOS Sequoia on your dropped Mac. The following sections are quite tricky and challenging, yet I do believe you can cover the whole process with ease!
Thanks for sharing!
macOS Sequoia install in progress
This section is quite essential in the whole installation process, so please strictly follow this guideline for a smooth installation experience! One more thing, this installation includes loads of details and takes a bit longer time, your patience matters very much here.
Step 1: Download the macOS Sequoia installer
Here we provide two reliable ways for downloading the macOS Sequoia installer, you can choose one to start with this download mission. Make sure the internet connection goes well or the download will fail consequently.
Option 1: Download the macOS Sequoia installer from a trusted developer
1⃣️ Click here to download the macOS Sequoia to your Mac computer, which updates the versions of macOS Sequoia along with Apple's release on this operating system. Preferentially choose the latest version of the InstallAssistant.pkg which is more stable and developed than the older one.
The installer you download from this website is identical to the one that you get from the App Store on supported Macs.
2⃣️ Once the download finishes, please install the pkg file and find the Install macOS 15 (beta).app on your Mac, where Spotlight Search or Launchpad works fine here.
Option 2: Download the macOS Sequoia zip file on GitHub
1⃣️ Visit gibMacOS and download the zip file which includes loads of Mac operating systems with different versions. Once the zip file is downloaded, find it on your machine and unzip it by double-clicking.
2⃣️ Locate the gibMacOS.command file in the unzip package.
You might be blocked off by a warning as this file comes from a non-Apple channel.
Facing this, go to the Security & Privacy tab and enter the General section, unlock the padlock with your admin password to tap on Open Anyway.
3⃣️ Double-click the gibMacOS.command file to open, then you'll be prompted by a command window. After its loading, type C, press the Enter key, and you will get the SU catalog.
4⃣️ From the options, select 4 which is for Developers, press the Enter key, and it will start downloading the catalog.
5⃣️ Type the number to load the macOS you want to download and press the Enter key to confirm your choice. Followingly, the script starts to download the files.
When the download finishes, type Q to quit Terminal. You can find the downloads in this directory:
/Users/username/Downloads/gibMacOS-master/macOS Downloads/developer/macOS serial number - macOS 15 Beta
Your username and macOS serial number differ from those in the directory, therefore this directory might not be 100% "accurate" for you to copy and paste in Finder or Spotlight Search to index the item you download. However, you can follow the path to find the one that you've downloaded.
With the macOS Sequoia installer at hand, we can dive right into creating a macOS Sequoia bootable USB.
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Step 2: Create the macOS Sequoia bootable USB
Fetch the USB hard drive you prepared and ensure you have backed up everything well stored in it. To smooth the following bootable USB creation, we suggest you reformat the USB drive to APFS file format on your Mac.
Ensure you have finished a full backup of the files stored on the USB hard drive since reformat wipes everything on it.
1. Open Disk Utility and select the target USB hard drive from the left sidebar of Disk Utility.
2. Click Erase on the top menu bar, give the drive a name, or just leave it original, select APFS in the Format section, and click Erase to begin the reformat.
Once the USB drive is formatted to APFS - a file system fully compatible with macOS, we can begin to create the USB a macOS Sequoia bootable drive.
1. Launch Mac Terminal on your machine and type in the following command line:
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sequoia.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume
Remember to replace "MyVolume" with your USB drive name and click Enter to execute the command line in Terminal.
2. Follow the onscreen wizard to complete the bootable USB creation mission. When the Terminal notifies you that the process is done, the macOS Sequoia Bootable USB drive is created successfully.
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Step 3: Prepare the USB installer
In this section, we are gonna install the OpenCore Legacy Patcher and prepare for booting macOS Sequoia on your unsupported Mac computer.
1. Go to the OpenCore Legacy Patcher on GitHub and click the Getting Started button to download and install this software on your machine. Or you can click here to download OpenCore Legacy Patcher directly if you have no interest in the basic introduction of OCLP.
2. Once the installation finishes, you can open it and let it begin to detect your Mac model automatically. You're recommended to select the target Mac model identifier from the drop-down menu for further smooth actions.
If you're uncertain about the target Mac model identifier, go to the target Mac's Apple Menu > About This Mac > System Report > Model Identifier.
3. Click on the Settings icon and select the target Mac model identifier from the Target Model menu. If you don't plan to debug the installation, disable Verbose, please.
4. Click on Return to the main window and click on Build and Install OpenCore.
5. When the OpenCore Legacy Patcher is built, it will prompt you to view the build log and install OpenCore to the target disk for booting. Click on Install to disk when you're prompted.
6. Click OK to allow the disk access.
7. Select the bootable USB you formatted before. If the USB isn't listed in the popup, click Search for disks again.
8. Select the volume OCLP lists to place the OpenCore Legacy Patcher. In our case, it's disk5s1 - EFI.
8. Several seconds later, it will prompt a window for you to reboot. If you ensure everything is done, click Reboot.
9. Then, you will see the confirmation popup to restart your Mac, just click on Restart to proceed.
Step 4: Boot the macOS Sequoia installer
1. When your Mac enters the boot screen after the restart, hold down the Option/Alt key on your keyboard to select the EFI Boot entry with the OpenCore icon.
2. Since you have loaded OpenCore, select Install macOS Sequoia on the boot screen.
If your Mac is looping back into the beginning of the setup after the first reboot, turn it off, start it again, and hold Option. This time, select the option with a grey hard disk icon, it can say "macOS Installer" or the name you gave the disk during the installer process. Keep repeating this step after every reboot if necessary.
3. Follow the onscreen wizard to complete the installation and some user settings like language, network, user account, and so on.
4. When the setup finishes, you're in macOS Sequoia on your unsupported Mac!
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Post macOS Sequoia install
This section provides some extra info and details of the macOS Sequoia install, you can read on for more advanced knowledge of Installing macOS Sequoia on your unsupported Mac or you can just skip them.
How to boot your unsupported Mac to macOS Sequoia without the USB hard drive?
If you want to boot your Mac into macOS Sequoia without the bootable USB we've made before, you can do the following:
- Download OpenCore Legacy Patcher on your Mac computer.
- Change the Patcher settings as you like and select your Mac model identifier in Target Model.
- Build OpenCore again and install the OpenCore to your internal hard drive.
- Reboot holding Option, and select the internal EFI.
How to boot macOS Sequoia on your unsupported Mac without Boot Picker?
To do this, run the OpenCore Patcher and head to Patcher Settings, then uncheck "Show OpenCore Boot Picker" on the Build tab:
Once you've toggled it off, build your OpenCore EFI once again and install it to your desired drive. Now to show the OpenCore selector, you can simply hold down the "ESC" key while clicking on EFI boot, and then you can release the "ESC" key when you see the cursor arrow at the top left.
SIP settings
To install macOS Ventura and all newer macOS versions, all unsupported Macs require lowered SIP settings.
Go to OpenCore Legacy Patcher > Settings > Security, then check the options in the pic below:
Wrap all up
This post is a comprehensive tutorial on how to install macOS Sequoia on an unsupported Mac, which includes the preparation, while-installation, and post-installation sections.
It walks you through manually installing macOS Sequoia on your canceled Mac model with step-wise guidance so that you can handle this mission even if you're new to it. If you want to experience macOS Sequoia yet have no supported device, try this post right now!
Note that you probably cannot experience every essence or highlight of macOS Sequoia since the outdated hardware cannot run the new macOS seamlessly!
