I'm currently upgrading an older Macbook Air from Catalina to Sonoma, When going through a Fedora upgrade, I can press

to see the log of what's currently going on. I assume macOS has a similar log, and I'm curious if it's possible to see it during an OS upgrade. I've been looking at progress bars for several hours and it would be nice to get some confirmation things are happening, and it's not in an infinite loop!

Sometimes it's hard to search for older / previous versions of macOS & OS X on the App Store or Apple web site since they change links to promote the newest shipping version. *This is an attempt to provide the canonical QA for this issue, as per the Meta QA - https://apple.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2418/where-is-the-list-of-canonical-questions-stored-for-ask-different I expect it to be modified over time to hopefully become a complete information resource.* How can I get any older version of a Mac OS to be able to run virtually (as a VM) or to reinstall a specific previous version on my Mac?

I have a number of issues with a MacBook 2009 15” running Leopard.I wish to upgrade to El Capitan if possible. Do I alter the computer time and date so it corresponds with the download as I can remember from past experience on an iMac I had to do just that. I used Internet Recovery but Cmd+R or Cmd+Opt+R doesn't seem to show it just goes straight to the front login page, perhaps Leopard doesn't have that function. I don't have the original Leopard startup disks for this model only a 2009 MacBook 13” which probably won't work. If someone could give me a guide on what exactly I should do it would be most appreciated. Secondly, I have a blue/white vertical bar on the center left of the screen. It doesn't show up when I connect to an external monitor. MacBook Pro 2009 4 GB RAM

Everything went well when I upgraded from iOS 12 to iOS 13, except that some iOS-macOS **High Sierra** synchronizations stopped working, or stopped working in full capacity. Before upgrading to **iOS 14**, I'd like to know. What apps will stop working (as) well between iOS and a macOS MacBook that cannot be upgraded beyond High Sierra. Is the list announced by Apple? Have you seen a list compiled by reporters? **Update** As much as I'd love to see examples of good dual-OS apps written by independent developers making it possible to do a bit on macOS, continue from iOS (under the same appleID), then return to macOS, etc, the only good ones I've seen and use are the ones written by Apple. So to make the question specific. Does upgrading to iOS 14 break any of the following? 1. Notes, e.g.: - Add a shopping list on macOS. See it on iOS when you're shopping - Take a photo on iOS. Add the photo to a note. Pick up the picture on macOS. 2. Photos, e.g.: - Add photos to your list of favorites on macOS. See them on iOS. 3. FaceTime, e.g.: - Receive a phone call on iOS. Answer with headphones on macOS. **Related:** - [Does iOS 14 sync with iTunes 12.8.2.3?](https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSBeta/comments/itg9fa/does_ios_14_sync_with_itunes_12823/) - [Manual Photo-Sync from Mac to IOS 14 still broken](https://www.reddit.com/r/ios14/comments/iyc18t/manual_photosync_from_mac_to_ios_14_still_broken/) - [iOS 14 devices with macOS High Sierra 13.6?](https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ios-14-devices-with-macos-high-sierra-13-6.2254587/) - [Syncing iPhone (iOS 14) with High Sierra using iTunes](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251814814)

For some tests, I need to deploy a precise setup: MacOS 10.15.4 with Xcode 12.3. My MacMini 2018/2020 is running 10.15.5 with VirtualBox 6.1.12. I have a running VM with 10.15.0 which I snapshot after installation. My plan was to then do a manual upgrade to 10.15.4 thanks to the corresponding combo update , as I do not want to jump to the latest Catalina version. The process of the manual update is to mount the dmg file, which then shows the pkg file that starts the upgrade process when run, and asks to reboot at some point to finalize everything. The reboot doesn't take me to the upgrade process, but back to the 10.15.0. There are many blog posts and guides regarding what to do when you go through the more classical path of having an update be downloaded to /Applications/Install macOS xxx.app. My guess is that at some point, both ways of upgrading follow the same process (eg reboot to some kind of "upgrade partition" that will overwrite the OS files, reboot to upgraded OS). I would like clarifications on the parts where these upgrade paths differ, so that I can troubleshoot what is preventing me from reaching 10.15.4. In the past, I did similar things with 10.14 and my notes on the topic don't show such an issue (rather issues with lack of APFS support in VirtualBox at that time). In particular, I think the partition layout has changed since then. Essentially, what I tried so far: - start manual upgrade process through the .pkg, reboot - interrupt boot by hammering Esc, reach some kind of grey and blue boot manager (is that VBox or Apple stuff? this is not the VBox EFI shell, there is a text-based UI menu with "Device Manager"/"Boot Manager"/"Boot Maintenance Manager") - explore partitions, looking for an EFI boot file (I spotted the recovery one, can't find the "regular" one nor the "upgrade" one) - boot For example, I wonder if the pkg is partially extracted and that I am supposed to find a boot.efi somewhere on the "System Data" partition. If so, where should I look for it? Do I have a more "sysadmin" way of deploying this upgrade, in particular without reboot?

I have an early 2008 Mac Pro which will only run up to El Capitan (10.11). Is there any hardware upgrade I can do to run later versions (10.13 and later)?

I have a M1 dual boot configuration with two installations of MacOS in separate APFS volumes. I recently updated one of them to Monterey. When I boot into the other system running Mojave, it also prompts for an update but tries to download the whole 12something GB update package *again*. Is it possible to use the update file from the other installation on this one?

Can I upgrade my Time Capsule to a larger internal drive and keep my original backup(s)? I'm aware you can drop in the new disk, the restore it as a new TC using AirPort Utility, and I'm also aware you can migrate backup(s) from an existing TimeMachine drive to a new one - but I want to do both: I want to replace the 500gb drive in my Time Capsule (2nd gen, 2009) to a 1tb drive, and I want to keep the existing backup(s) from the 500gb to the new drive, so everything is as it was, just with a larger internal drive. I understand it's not as simple as swapping the drive, restoring it as a new TC and then using CCC to copy the data from the original drive, so is there a solution to what I want to achieve? Basically I want to upgrade the original TC drive to a larger one and not lose my previous backup(s).

I attempted to update my M3 Macbook Pro from Sonoma (14.7.1) to Sequoia (15.3.1) but the installer got stuck somewhere in the middle—even after letting it run for more than 24 hours. (As shown, just a black screen with the Apple logo plus progress bar roughly at the half-way mark.) I forced a power-off, then tried booting to see what state I was in. I got a login prompt but was not able to complete the login process. So I tried to reboot into safe mode, which was successful, and it reported I was running the updated Sequoia (15.3.1). But since I could not login without safe mode, though, I had no choice but to try again. I went to the App Store, downloaded the installer again, and ran it again. Essentially the same thing happened but was much further along the progress bar, perhaps 90% of the way (but I definitely take that with a grain of salt—progress bars are notoriously inaccurate). I was looking for other ideas to try again without having to wipe the disk and start fresh; disabling FileVault, reset PRAM, etc... but lo and behold I was able to login, and the machine claimed it was successfully running Sequoia (15.3.1). But what is the true state of my machine? On the one hand, the installer did not finish, so there was no reason I should expect I have a valid installation of Sequoia. But on the other hand, there are soooo many things that have to be correct to be able to (a) login successfully and (b) run all my usual apps without any anomalies or apparent issues (Slack, VSCode, Chrome, Vim, Joplin, Terminal, git, etc...)  And I have been using the machine without incident for several hours. Checks I made: * I rebooted into recovery mode and ran Disk Utility and checked the containers and volumes, which reported no issues. * System Information >> Software >> Installations reports the two install attempts at the bottom (well, sort of three items reported ?!): * Looking at the install log (/var/log/install.log) not quite sure what to look for, but I do see a lot of occurrences of this:

Package Authoring: error running installation-check script: TypeError: null is not an object
(evaluating 'cpuFeatures.split') at x-distribution:///installer-gui-script%5B1%5D/installation-check%5B1%5D/@script

Are there any other tests or checks I could/should run to validate the OS install?

I have a friend who is trying to squeeze a bit of extra life from his aging 2015 13" retina MBP by replacing the factory SSD, which recently bit the dust (flashing folder.) At my direction, he picked up a 1TB Crucial P3 Plus (regular P3 was backordered, but my understanding is that PCIe 4.0 should be back-compat...) and one of those cheap NVMe adapters on Amazon. He performed the physical install by following the iFixit guide, but is not able to see any evidence of the disk's existence in Disk Utility after booting into recovery mode. I am in another state and not able to help in person, but walked him through some basic troubleshooting steps that did not resolve the issue. He was running El Capitan(!) on his internal disk when it bit the dust, so the Internet recovery is for El Capitan. While Googling I came across an old thread on another forum that said High Sierra was the first version of macOS to add critical firmware-level support for third party NVMe drives internally. I don't know how true that is, as this is the first I've heard that claim and the person did not cite a source. Assuming that IS true, our predicament becomes one of: his factory SSD running El Cap died running El Cap, and though we were ready to install Big Sur on the new drive, we can't do that if it's not visible in Disk Utility. How can we get High Sierra or newer installed in the "base system" storage (recovery mode, et al) in order to "see" the new SSD and move forward as usual? If the firmware thing is NOT true, my next instincts were that either PCIe 4.0 disks are only backwards compatible if there is firmware to recognize them (I don't know if this is true or not) *or* the new drive may have been factory formatted as NTFS which is not natively compatible with macOS. Even then, I imagine it should still show in Disk Utility and be able to be formatted from there? Failing all of that, he may have a DOA disk or adapter. We are trying to exhaust all other trains of thought before getting into the headache of returns and exchanges. Thanks in advance for any help or advice on this one!

I have an imac 2017 21.5in running High Sierra, and can't install Ventura, I receive a message saying installation is damaged and can't be installed.

I recently got a 2015 Macbook pro Retina whose maximum supported version is Monterey 12.7 if I'm not mistaken. I decided to force an update via OpenCore Patcher to the latest version of Sonoma as I am an app developer and to install XCODE with Swift6 I need that version. The first few days the macbook ran great despite having forced the upgrade. No crashes or slowdowns. Suddenly, yesterday it started to run very very slow, as if it had lag. The windows opened in jumps, the clicks took a long time to be displayed on screen, the finder icons were black... It started this way after installing Git via brew and, in turn, when I got the option to upgrade to Sequoia (I didn't upgrade). I tried the following: - I uninstalled Git in case that was the error but it didn't fix it. - I also noticed that the hard disk was too full for the applications I had on the macbook and I started to delete cache and apps in case it was a memory problem but it didn't fix it. - I thought it could be that the new version (Sequoia) was automatically downloaded without being installed and I deleted the updates folder of the library and executed some commands by console that I found on the internet to remove possible pending updates. It did not work. - I've also check if there was any problem with the ram or any app consuming too much memory but all looks OK. I have gone back to the Monterrey version and it works correctly but I would like to have it updated to Sonoma to be able to continue working with it. I don't know if anyone else has experienced this kind of error or if you know of any method to upgrade your 2015 Macbook pro Retina to Sonoma in a more stable way. Thanks in advance

In my quest to update my mac pro 2009 (4.1), I did encounter a roadblock, since the last OS that I can run on 4.1 is 10.11. Now; I found a method to flash the machine so it becomes a 5.1; which allow me to install up to Mojave I believe. The problem is that after following the instructions, the machine won't update. This is what I did - mount the firmware update DMG and run the app, it create a ram disk on desktop - Once done, it ask me to shut down the computer and restart it. - I restart as per instructions; holding the button until the light flash and the machine beep, but it just boot in the current os, and no update is done I did check the following - my 4.1 mac has the latest firmware available officially from Apple - I have the original GT120 that came with it, in the bottom slot (not the 16x, since that card is garbage); also the only other devices plugged in, beside the mouse and keyboard are 2 extra hard drives. So far, after reading forums and tons of huge posts, I found no way to solve my problem. So I hope anyone here has experience with the procedure and can point me to the right solution. Once I get this done, my second step will be to go for High sierra or Mojave, and then try to install windows via bootcamp, but one step at time.

We have added custom modifications to the /etc/zshrc, which work. The issue is following an OS update (for example recently went from 13.2 to 13.3), the file gets overwritten and we lose our modifications. Does anyone know whether there is any other zsh related file in /etc that is safe from update related overwrites? We are eyeing /etc/zprofile as a possibility, but not sure if that is any less at risk? Does Apple provide any guidance here for system administrators?

Before upgrading to Mavericks, I had a "Sharing only" account called "Shared" with a password, which I used to allow other computers to connect to my Mac. However, since upgrading to Mavericks, this account no longer appears in the "Users & Groups" System Preferences pane. I believe this is because it conflicted with the built-in "Shared" folder in /Users/Shared, so Mavericks probably had trouble with this account when upgrading OS X. However, the account itself still works, with my old password. Is there a way to delete this account, even if it doesn't appear in "Users & Groups", without deleting the /Users/Shared folder (which is separate; the folder is part of OS X, and my "Sharing only" account has no Home folder).

I wanted to upgrade my internal SSD from my Macbook Pro 2017 256GB to a 1TB SSD I found online. I bought it from Aliexpress and seemed genuine. The fact is that my computer does not recognize it IN Disk Utility, however, it does boot from the 1TB SSD with the preinstalled OS and it detects it. But I wanted to upgrade to Catalina from Disk Utility it fails to show the SSD. I tried resetting the SMC, PRAM, extract the SSD and mount it another time. Finally I get a folder with a question mark error and a prohibition sign.

The *Software Updates* in *System Preferences* are all disabled. In spite of this macOS continues to show Notification Banners in Catalina (and Big Sur) which some users accidentally click to initiate an update. **I want to stop macOS from showing all the Software Update notification banners** to prevent accidental updates. Yet I still want to be able to manually initiate software updates when desired. Previously the following has been suggested: 1) softwareupdate --ignore “macOS Big Sur”, but this is not available any more as a command option and would block only major upgrades not minor or security upgrades AFAIK. (Only available in High Sierra up to Catalina with *Apple Business Manager* enrollment, *Apple School Manager* enrollment or Enrollment in a *user-approved MDM*) 2) Moving com.apple.SoftwareUpdateNotificationManager.plist from /System/Library/LaunchAgents to /System/Library/LaunchAgentsIgnored, but in order to make these changes, one must boot from another disk, otherwise System is read only. Also the notification will reappear if *Software Updates* is selected in *System Preferences*. This is cumbersome as it means a lot of steps including additional reboots when updates are desired and manually initiated. I am currently testing another proposed solution which is to install the [Lulu application firewall](https://objective-see.com/products/lulu.html) and then to block /System/Library/CoreServices/Software Update.app/Contents/Resources/softwareupdated. Blocking and re-enabling softwareupdated for manual updates would be less cumbersome than disabling and re-enabling the system protected LaunchAgent, but I am not quite sure, if it will actually prevent the notifications from appearing. Who can confirm that this works in the long run? Are there any other options to accomplish this? *Related questions: [How to block updates to Mac OS X Catalina?](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/367995/how-to-block-updates-to-mac-os-x-catalina) / [Remove macOS Big Sur "Upgrade Now" button in System Preferences](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/406545/remove-macos-big-sur-upgrade-now-button-in-system-preferences) / [How can I permanently disable App Store notifications in Big Sur?](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/409093/how-can-i-permanently-disable-app-store-notifications-in-big-sur)*

I have an old MacBook Pro that I found laying about my house and it is specifically a MacBookPro9,2. I am aware that I can upgrade the RAM to 16GB DDR3 and that I can convert the hard drive to SSD; but I am wondering if there are other parts of the laptop that I can upgrade like the CPU, fan, or something of that nature if at all possible. If someone could shed some light on this, I would be grateful.

I'm trying to headlessly upgrade macOS from 14.7 to 15.0 on my M2 mini. The upgrade from 14.6.1 to 14.7 went smoothly. However, the same command doesn't work for 14.7 to 15.0 it seems. It says it's restarting, but it's not. A manual restart works, but the version is unchanged after the system is back up. How can I fix this? Here's the command I'm using:

$ sudo softwareupdate -iaR --agree-to-license
Software Update Tool

Finding available software
Downloading macOS Sequoia 15.0
Password:

Downloaded: macOS Sequoia 15.0
Restarting...
$

Note that _nothing_ happens after the Restarting... - it just returns the prompt - no restart happens.

In the past colleagues (and I) believed it was often a bad idea to install newer OSs on older Macs. I get the feeling that has changed, and that putting Catalina on my 2016 MacBook Pro shouldn't be a problem. What I'm wondering about is whether my local webserver will survive the upgrade. I have Apache/MySQL/PHP set up in the same approximate manner as we were told to do this years ago - sites running in /Library/WebServer/Documents, custom hosts and httpd-vhosts.conf files in /private/etc and so on. In past os upgrades and moves to new machines it's been necessary to re-set-up all that, which isn't a huge problem but also not a lot of fun. In the past it helped that I was migrating to a new machine, so I had access to my whole old setup and could do things like export MySQL databases from the old and import into the new. This time I'm thinking about upgrading my existing machine so I won't have easy access to a backup while I'm doing this. I hate the thought of buying a new machine just so I can upgrade the OS. On the other hand this is my work machine and it's 4 years old (and has a dead speaker) so perhaps it's time to bite the bullet. Any of you experienced migrators have an opinion about which way I should go?