Apple today seeded the first beta of an upcoming OS X 10.11.4 El Capitan update to developers for testing purposes, just over one month after releasing the second OS X El Capitan update, OS X 10.11.2. For starters, if your Mac is listed here below, it should be able to run the El Capitan operating system: 1. Late 2008 or newer MacBook or MacBook Air 2. Mid 2007 MacBook Pro or iMac 3. Early 2009 or newer Mac Mini or XServe. For El Capitan to run on your computer, it needs to have a minimum 2 GB of RAM.
When you upgrade to macOS Catalina, you get more of everything you love about Mac. Experience dedicated apps for music, TV, and podcasts. Smart new features in the apps you use every day. And Sidecar, which lets you use iPad as a second Mac display. Best of all, upgrading is free and easy.
Chances are, your Mac can run macOS Catalina.
Mac computers with Metal-capable graphics processors (GPUs) can upgrade to macOS Catalina.
Make sure you’re ready to upgrade.
Before you upgrade, we recommend that you back up your Mac. Then, if your Mac is running OS X Mavericks 10.9 or later, you can upgrade directly to macOS Catalina.
Upgrading is free. And easier than you think.
Upgrading from macOS Mojave?
Go to Software Update in System Preferences to find the macOS Catalina upgrade. Click Upgrade Now and follow the onscreen instructions to begin your upgrade. If you don’t have broadband access, you can upgrade your Mac at any Apple Store.
Upgrading from an older version of macOS?
If you’re running High Sierra (10.13), Sierra (10.12), or El Capitan (10.11), upgrade to macOS Catalina from the App Store. If you’re running Lion (10.7) or Mountain Lion (10.8), you will need to upgrade to El Capitan (10.11) first. If you don’t have broadband access, you can upgrade your Mac at any Apple Store.
- OS X 10.9 or later
- 4GB of memory
- 12.5GB of available storage (OS X El Capitan 10.11.5 or later)*
- Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
- Some features require a compatible internet service provider; fees may apply.
For details about your Mac model, click the Apple icon at the top left of your screen and choose About This Mac. Kaleidoscope 2 1 1 download free. These Mac models are compatible with macOS Catalina:
- MacBook (Early 2015 or newer)
- MacBook Air (Mid 2012 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 or newer)
- Mac mini (Late 2012 or newer)
- iMac (Late 2012 or newer)
- iMac Pro (2017)
- Mac Pro (Late 2013 or newer)
Dictation and Voice Memos
Requires a microphone (built-in or external).
Spotlight Suggestions
Requires a broadband internet connection.
Gestures
Requires a Multi-Touch trackpad, Force Touch trackpad, Magic Trackpad, or Magic Mouse.
Force Touch gestures require a Force Touch trackpad.
VoiceOver gestures require a Multi-Touch trackpad, Force Touch trackpad, or Magic Trackpad.
Photo Booth
Best sound mixing software. Requires a FaceTime or iSight camera (built-in or external), or USB video class (UVC) camera.
FaceTime
Audio calls require a microphone (built-in or external) and broadband internet connection.
Video calls require a built-in FaceTime camera, an iSight camera (built-in or external), or a USB video class (UVC) camera; and broadband internet connection.
Apple TV
High Dynamic Range (HDR) video playback is supported by the following Mac models:
Update From Lion To El Capitan
- MacBook Pro (2018 or newer)
- iMac Pro (2017)
- Mac Pro (2019) with Pro Display XDR
Dolby Atmos soundtrack playback is supported by the following Mac models:
- MacBook Air (2018 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (2018 or newer)
Sidecar
Supported by the following Mac models:
- MacBook (2016 or newer)
- MacBook Air (2018 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (2016 or newer)
- Mac mini (2018 or newer)
- iMac (late 2015 or newer)
- iMac Pro (2017 or newer)
- Mac Pro (2019)
Supported by all iPad models with Apple Pencil support:
- 12.9-inch iPad Pro
- 11-inch iPad Pro
- 10.5-inch iPad Pro
- 9.7-inch iPad Pro
- iPad (6th generation or later)
- iPad mini (5th generation)
- iPad Air (3rd generation)
Continuity Camera
Requires an iPhone or iPad with a Lightning connector and iOS 12 or later.
Continuity Sketch and Continuity Markup
Requires an iPhone with iOS 13 or an iPad with iPadOS.
Handoff
Requires an iPhone or iPad with a Lightning connector and iOS 8 or later.
Instant Hotspot
Requires an iPhone or iPad with cellular connectivity, a Lightning connector, and iOS 8.1 or later. Requires Personal Hotspot service through your carrier.
Universal Clipboard
Requires an iPhone or iPad with a Lightning connector and iOS 10 or later.
Auto Unlock
Supported by Mac models introduced in mid 2013 or later.
Requires an Apple Watch with watchOS 3 or later or an iPhone 5 or later.
Approve with Apple Watch
Supported by Mac models introduced in mid 2013 or later.
Requires an Apple Watch with watchOS 6 or later or an iPhone 6s or later with iOS 13.
El Capitan For Mac
Phone Calling
Requires an iPhone with iOS 8 or later and an activated carrier plan.
SMS
Requires an iPhone with iOS 8.1 or later and an activated carrier plan.
Home
Requires an iPhone with iOS 12 or later and a configured Home app.
AirDrop
AirDrop to iOS and iPadOS devices requires an iPhone or iPad with a Lightning connector and iOS 7 or later.
AirPlay
AirPlay Mirroring requires an Apple TV (2nd generation or later).
AirPlay for web video requires an Apple TV (2nd generation or later).
Peer-to-peer AirPlay requires a Mac (2012 or later) and an Apple TV (3rd generation rev A, model A1469 or later) with Apple TV software 7.0 or later.
Time Machine
Requires an external storage device (sold separately).
Power Nap
Supported by the following Mac models:
- MacBook (Early 2015 or newer)
- MacBook Air (Mid 2012 or newer)
- MacBook Pro with Retina display (Mid 2012 or newer)
- Mac mini (Late 2012 or newer)
- iMac (Late 2012 or newer)
- iMac Pro (2017)
- Mac Pro (Late 2013 or newer)
Boot Camp
How to check ios version on macbook air. Allows Boot Camp installations of Windows 10 on supported Mac models.
Exchange Support
Requires Microsoft Office 365, Exchange 2016, Exchange 2013, or Exchange Server 2010. Installing the latest Service Packs is recommended.
Windows Migration
Supports OS X 10.7 or later and Windows 7 or later.
App Store
Available only to persons age 13 or older in the U.S. and many other countries and regions.
- Apple Books
- App Store
- Automator
- Calculator
- Calendar
- Chess
- Contacts
- Dashboard
- Dictionary
- DVD Player
- FaceTime
- Find My
- Font Book
- Home
- Image Capture
- Launchpad
- Maps
- Messages
- Mission Control
- Music
- Notes
- Photo Booth
- Photos
- Podcasts
- Preview
- QuickTime Player
- Reminders
- Safari
- Stickies
- Stocks
- System Preferences
- TextEdit
- Time Machine
- TV
- Voice Memos
- Activity Monitor
- AirPort Utility
- Audio MIDI Setup
- Bluetooth File Exchange
- Boot Camp Assistant
- ColorSync Utility
- Console
- Digital Color Meter
- Disk Utility
- Grapher
- Keychain Access
- Migration Assistant
- Screenshot
- Screen Time
- Script Editor
- Sidecar
- System Information
- Terminal
- VoiceOver Utility
- Arabic
- Catalan
- Croatian
- Simplified Chinese
- Traditional Chinese
- Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong)
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English (Australia)
- English (UK)
- English (U.S.)
- Finnish
- French
- French (Canada)
- German
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Hungarian
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Malay
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Brazilian Portuguese
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Russian
- Slovak
- Spanish
- Spanish (Latin America)
- Swedish
- Thai
- Turkish
- Ukrainian
- Vietnamese
How to make the MacBook Air SuperDrive work with any Mac (El Capitan onwards)
This is an updated version of an earlier post, adapted for Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan and later. It describes how to apply a simple trick to make the MacBook Air SuperDrive work with any Mac. For earlier Mac OSes (and more context),please refer to the original post.
Long time ago, I bought an external Apple USB SuperDrive for my MacBook PRO 17″ late 2010, in which I had replaced the built-in superdrive by a SSD to speed up the machine.
Only to find out, like many other people, that Apple prevents the superdrive to be used with Mac models that originally came with a built-in superdrive. Nowadays, Apple does not sell these models any more, but many of these older Macs are still very good machines, especially when upgraded to SSD like my MBP.
With some investigation and hacking back in 2011, I found out that Apple engineers apparently had the need to test the superdrive with officially not supported Macs themselves, so the driver already has an option built-in to work on any machine.
Macbook El Capitan Download
[Note: there is also a simpler method (and apparently, the only one working for High Sierra), as for example described here, which consists of just typing sudo nvram boot-args=”mbasd=1″ in a terminal – done. I had that method in my post for a long time, but removed it recently because feedback was very mixed. While it seems to work fine in many cases, some users ended up with their Mac not booting any more afterwards. Maybe it was due to other important settings already present in boot-args, so if you want to give it a try, it might be a good idea to do a check first, see last post on this page]
Update Mac Os El Capitan
This option can be activated on El Capitan (10.11) and later following the procedure below. Basically, it’s a clean and safe trick that has proven working fine for many users since 2011. But still, you’ll be doing this entirely on your own risk! Using command line in recovery mode and editing system files incorrectly can damage things severely – make sure you have a backup before starting!
- Boot your Mac into recovery mode: Select “Restart” from the Apple menu and then hold the left Cmd-key and the “R” key down for a while until the startup progress bar appears. (Thanks to @brewsparks for the idea to use recovery mode!)
- After the system has started (might take longer than a normal start), do not choose any of the options offered.
- Instead, choose “Terminal” from the “Utilities” menu.
- In the text window which opens, type the following (and then the newline key)
- You’ll get output similar to the following, with MyStartDisk being the name of your Mac’s startup disk:
- Then, type the following but replace the MyStartDisk part with the actual name of your startup disk as listed by the previous command (you can copy and paste the name to make sure you don’t make a typing mistake, but don’t forget the doublequotes!):
- type the following command (note that xml1 below is 3 letters x,m,l followed by one digit 1)
- and then
- Now you are in the “pico” editor. You cannot use the mouse, but the arrow keys to move the cursor.
- Insert mbasd=1 in the <string></string> value below the <key>Kernel Flags</key> (If and only if there is already something written between <string> and </string>, then use a space to separate the mbasd=1 from what’s already there. Otherwise, avoid any extra spaces!). The file will then look like:[Important note for users of Trim Enabler: make sure you have the latest version of Trim Enabler (see here) before you edit the file! Otherwise, your Mac might not start up afterwards].
- Save (press Ctrl-X, answer yes to save by pressing Y, press newline key to confirm the file name).
- Restart your machine. That’s it! (When you connect the superdrive now, you will no longer get the “device not supported” notification – because it is now supported)
I tested the above on El Capitan 10.11, but I expect it to work for macOS Sierra 10.12 and beyond. The trick has worked from 10.5.3 onwards for more than 5 years, so except Apple suddenly wants to kill that feature, it will probably stay in future OSes.