

That way, you’ll be much safer from any type of malicious software, spyware or other potential attacks. The trouble is that it’s tough - if not impossible - to know whether they fall into that camp or the bad actor camp.īecause of that, it’s worth foregoing any third-party download link and putting the extra effort into finding the links directly from Apple. There are undoubtedly perfectly good people out there publishing old macOS installer images with absolutely no malicious intent. In a word: because those third-party links are probably not safe. While would you need to dig around and try to find Apple’s link to an old macOS installer when you can simply find a perfectly good one on a third-party website? Why get it directly from Apple?īut wait, you might say. You can, for example, set up macOS Mojave on a virtual machine and continue using 32-bit apps - even if your host Mac is running Catalina. But in most cases, running a newer version of macOS (or the newest version possible) is preferable.Īn old installer image is also incredibly handy if you’re reliant on 32-bit apps and haven’t updated to macOS Catalina yet.Īs we’ve covered previously, you can actually set up a Mac virtual machine using a virtualization app like VirtualBox. You may be fine leaving it with the version that it’s currently running. In fact, if you have a particularly old Mac gathering dust and you’d like to update it, it might be fairly difficult to find the latest version of macOS that it can run. Not every Mac out there in the wild is capable of running macOS Catalina. The most non-technical reason for needing an older version of macOS is simply to update an older machine. (That list might include system administrators, security professionals, developers, etc.) If you fall into the category of needing an old version of macOS, you’ll know it. There are a number of reasons why keeping an older macOS installer is a good idea, but most of them are fairly technical. Why would you need old macOS installers? Old macOS installers can be used for a variety of purposes, including creating bootable USB drives. Here’s what you need to know about finding an old macOS installer image, why you might need them, and some tips on how to collect them going forward. This may be especially pertinent information because of a recent security certificate expiration back in October. Need to run 32-bit apps on macOS Catalina? Use a Mojave virtual machine.How to install macOS or OS X on a new hard drive for your Mac.How to clean install macOS Catalina (without a bootable USB).

But while it is difficult, it’s still completely possible. Apple, for whatever reason, makes it fairly hard to find installers for older versions of macOS.
