To do this, select Disk Utility, choose your system volume and click Erase, then select the APFS format. If your Mac is currently running a version of macOS that predates High Sierra or Mojave, you'll need to format your hard drive to APFS before installing Catalina.Select your USB drive installer from the boot list.When the installer is complete, restart your Mac and hold down the Option key when the reboot tone sounds.Select your flash drive volume from the list and click Start.Connect a USB flash drive (formatted as MacOS Extended Journaled) into your Mac and select Create a bootable installer from the three Installation Method options.It's over 7GB, so you'll have to wait a while for it to complete.

Right-click the Catalina Patcher app and select Open.Download the latest version of the Catalina Patcher by DOSDude1.MacRumors cannot be held liable for any data loss or damage as a result. Attempting to install Catalina on an unsupported Mac is in no way supported by Apple, and you are doing so at your own risk. How to Use Catalina Patcher on Older Macsīefore you proceed with these steps, ensure that you have an up-to-date backup of your Mac. You can find a compatible list of unsupported Macs for Catalina Patcher on the DosDude website. Of course, just because you can do this, doesn't mean you should, as there's a good chance that performance will be sub-optimal, while Catalina features may depend on modern Mac hardware ( Sidecar, for example) and likely won't work at all.ĭespite these risks, if for whatever reason you're still interested in installing macOS 10.15 Catalina on older unsupported hardware, these steps should get you up and running. But that doesn't mean there's no way that you can get it running.ĭosDude Catalina Patcher is a popular third-party tool that allows users to patch the MacOS Catalina installer on otherwise unsupported Macs. If your Mac is too old to make it onto the above list, Apple has decided that it lacks the hardware required to meet the demands of Catalina. What You Can Do if You Have an Unsupported Mac Look just below the OS X version number in the Overview tab – if the Mac model name is the same or a later model year than the one shown in the compatibility list above, your Mac is compatible with macOS Catalina. To check if your Mac is compatible, open the Apple () menu in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen and select About This Mac. In the case of Catalina, the latest macOS version, the operating system doesn't work on models released before mid-2012 (and Mac Pros before late 2013).Īpple's official list of Macs supporting macOS Catalina: Each year that Apple releases a major new version of macOS, a few older Mac models that ran the previous version usually fail to make the new list of officially supported Macs.

A1181 os x compatibility