Apple goes retro with free downloads of OS X Lion and Mountain Lion

You no longer have to pay an upgrade fee to get older download codes, but you can if you want. Roman Loyola reports

While macos is currently on version 11 (otherwise known as Big Sur) and macos 12 Monterey is coming later this year, there are plenty of people who use old versions of the Mac operating system. Some are still using OS X 10.7 Lion and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, and until recently, you had to pay Apple £20 to get download codes for those Oses. But there’s good news: Apple is now offering Lion and Mountain Lion for free for anyone who wants them.

To get Lion and Mountain Lion for free, you can visit the support

documents for those operating systems on Apple’s website:

Mac OS X Lion installer free download (4.72GB): fave.co/3i3ogpp Mac OS X Mountain Lion installer free download (4.45GB): fave.co/3ytxlws

COMPATIBILITY

Lion runs on Macs that came prior to the launch of Mountain Lion in 2012. Mountain Lion runs on the Macs below, but you may not be able to downgrade to it unless you completely reformat the drive. You can’t install an old OS on top of a newer one. Also, the oldest OS an M1 Mac can run is Big Sur. • imac (Mid 2007-2020).

• Macbook (Late 2008 Aluminium, or Early 2009 or newer).

• Macbook Pro (Mid/late 2007 or newer).

• Macbook Air (Late 2008 or newer). • Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer). • Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer). • Xserve (Early 2009).

SNOW LEOPARD

Mac OS X 10. 6 Snow Leopard was released in 2009 and introduced the Mac App Store. Apple used to sell it for £19.99, but no longer offers it. You can find downloadable copies of Snow Leopard (fave.co/2uh08uv) and Leopard (fave.co/3eajyji) on the Internet Archive and the reviews on the Internet Archive’s pages have tips on how to create USB installers from the downloads.