Using a hack, older Macs that cannot be upgraded to macOS Ventura may be given a second chance at life.
macOS Ventura system requirements: Can your Mac Handle it?
In recent editions, the minimum system requirements for macOS Ventura have increased, and certain Macs are no longer supported. macOS Monterey, which debuted in 2022 and came before Ventura, is compatible with all iMac models built as far back as 2014. In contrast, Ventura only supports iMac models manufactured in 2017 or later. The 2013 MacPro “trashcan” and the late-2014 Mac mini have been removed from Ventura’s device requirements. Ventura is incompatible with some of Apple’s older MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro notebooks that are supported by macOS Big Sur.
The following Mac computers are supported by macOS Ventura:
- MacBook (2017 and newer)
- MacBook Air (2018 and newer)
- MacBook Pro (2017 and newer)
- Mac mini (2018 and newer)
- Mac Studio (2022)
- iMac (2017 and newer)
- iMac Pro (2017)
- Mac Pro (2019 and newer)
Expected to arrive this coming 6th June, Ventura will add new features to Apple Silicon Macs while continuing to support Intel-based Macs. Despite the fact that a number of Mac models cannot be upgraded to Ventura, it is possible that they could be upgraded in an unofficial manner.
Mykola Grymalyuk, the project lead for OpenCore Legacy Patcher, revealed on Monday via a tweet that there is hope for older Macs. After months of effort, the project’s team was able to make macOS Ventura run on Macs with “legacy Metal GPUs.”
A number of screenshots published by the developer depict the operating system beta running on a 2008 Mac Pro, a 2012 Mac mini, a 2014 Mac mini, and a 2014 5K iMac.
OpenCore is a bootloader used largely by enthusiasts to build their own Hackintoshes, or PCs that run macOS. OpenCore Legacy Patcher utilises the same concept to enable older and officially unsupported Macs to run newer versions of macOS.
Support for macOS Ventura on older systems could be a positive indicator for legacy Apple gear owners who wish to continue using the most recent versions of the operating system.
However, Grymalyuk cautions that there is no estimate for when mainline support for the showcased capabilities will be added to the OpenCore Legacy Patcher’s mainline version.
You can find out about the new features for Ventura.
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