This thread will be dedicated to the discussion of running macOS 13.0 on Unsupported Macs
Welcome to the new macOS Ventura on Unsupported Macs thread! We're eagerly awaiting for all our community developers and enthusiasts to test out the new version of macOS. Please play it by ear and only experiment with the new OS if you really know what you're doing.
We will be expanding this thread with much more information as the day goes by including known issues as well as patcher support.
macOS Ventura Compatibility
A lot of known issues exist, do not expect fixes and please do not even ask for fixes - this constant noise only ruins motivation of all people involved into this project.
A complete step by step guide is available in the OCLP documentation. Please read this documentation before you start the installation process. Please understand only USB installer based installations are supported.
Support is limited to legacy Apple systems only as listed within the docs.
Please keep the USB installer, it is a simple recovery tool in case your shiny new Ventura installation breaks for some reason.
OCLP gets regularly updates, please check those updates by reading the release notes and the full changelog.
This will be great!
Welcome to the new macOS Ventura on Unsupported Macs thread! We're eagerly awaiting for all our community developers and enthusiasts to test out the new version of macOS. Please play it by ear and only experiment with the new OS if you really know what you're doing.
We will be expanding this thread with much more information as the day goes by including known issues as well as patcher support.
macOS Ventura Compatibility
- MacBook Air (2018 and Later)
- MacBookAir8,x
- MacBookAir9,x
- MacBook Pro (2017 and Later)
- MacBookPro14,x
- MacBookPro15,x
- MacBookPro16,x
- MacBook (2017 and Later)
- MacBook10,1
- Mac Mini (2018 and Later)
- MacMini8,1
- iMac (2017 and Later)
- iMac18,x
- iMac19,x
- iMac20,x
- iMac Pro (2017 and Later)
- iMacPro1,1
- Mac Pro (2019)
- MacPro7,1
Not officially supported in macOS Ventura, but most likely fully capable of running it
- 2015/17 MacBook Air
- MacBookAir7,x
- 2015/16 MacBook Pro
- MacBookPro11,4-5
- MacBookPro12,1
- MacBookPro13,x
- 2016 MacBook
- MacBook9,1
- 2014 Mac Mini
- Macmini7,1
- 2015 iMac
- iMac16,x
- iMac17,1
- 2013 Mac Pro
- MacPro6,1
Not officially supported in macOS Ventura, but currently not or only partly capable of running it
- Machines without AVX2 support will no longer boot
without workaround**- If you're unsure whether or not your Mac supports AVX2, type in this command into Terminal
sysctl -a | grep machdep.cpu.leaf7_features | grep -o AVX2. Getting AVX2 printed out it means your system has a (decent) chance to run Ventura in future. - UPDATE: A workaround has been found: Using the Rosetta 2 x64 emulation library from Apple Silicon Ventura installations, all intel processors from Core 2 Duo (Penryn) on can successfully boot the current macos 13.0 beta
- If you're unsure whether or not your Mac supports AVX2, type in this command into Terminal
- Devices with Ivy Bridge CPUs and older, basically all Macs older than Late 2013 do not support AVX2 natively. See above.
- Support of these systems would require an opcode emulator to work around it, a complex piece of software. See workaround above. Meanwhile partial support has been achieved by identification and patching of software using AVX2 code. But this patching is not a perfectly working solution.
GPU drivers from before Kaby Lake (Intel) or Polaris (AMD) are removed.Graphics drivers have been patched on all metal-supported (basically post-2012) GPUs. See this post for details. Nevertheless especially Nvidia Kepler and HD4000 based systems (Metal 1) cause a log of problems and will likely not be able to enjoy the full feature-set as systems with Metal 2 dGPU. Currently features like face recognition in the foto app does not work.Even if you can boot, you might not have GPU acceleration, just frame buffer at most.Can be circumvented by applying alpha acceleration patches on metal-supported GPUsNon-metal GPUs have absolutely no support for graphics acceleration(see #998) Nevertheless applications support remains broken as more and more Apple and third party apps are relying on the metal framework. Maps, Photos, Word are just a few to be named. No fix ever!
Owners of older Macs are used to the procedure...
Get used the reading the first post of this thread again and again, it is the most valuable source of information. It will be updated constantly.
- Just check the first post of the macOS 12 Monterey on Unsupported Macs thread
Get used the reading the first post of this thread again and again, it is the most valuable source of information. It will be updated constantly.
This is not the OCLP support llist!
This is an unconfirmed list of machines Apple dropped, but that have managed to boot Ventura
(regardless of the patches/method required to enable them, * denotes GPU metal API patch support with appropriate GPUs, whereas + indicates non-metal acceleration patch support):
MacPro3,1 *
MacPro4,1 *
MacPro5,1 *
iMac13,1 (21.5") *
iMac14,1 (21.5") *
iMac14,3 (21.5") *
iMac15,1 (5k) *
iMac16,2 (21.5") *
iMac17,1 (5k) *
MacMini4,1
MacMini5,1
MacMini6,1 *
MacMini6,2 *
MacMini7,1 *
MacBookAir2,1
MacBookAir3,2 +
MacBookAir4,2 (13") +
MacBookAir5,x *
MacBookAir6,1 (11") *
MacBookAir7,x *
MacBook4,1
MacBook5,1 +
MacBook5,2
MacBook6,1
MacBook7,1
MacBook8,1 *
MacBook9,1 *
MacBookPro4,1 (15" and 17") +
MacBookPro5,x
MacBookPro6,1 (17") +
MacBookPro7,1 (13")
MacBookPro8,x
MacBookPro9,2 *
MacBookPro10,1 *
MacBookPro11,1 *
MacBookPro13,3 *
...to be continued!
Even using a supported metal GPU on pre Haswell systems fails because the AMD driver stack (AMDRadeonX4000GLDriver.bundle) now uses AVX2 instructions. AVX2 use will not be limited to the kernel and drivers. You may check this link about the current situation.
For all of who have installed Ventura on any supported/unsupported devices you may use this method to check for AVX2 instructions hidden in any executables or libs. Unfortunately is is not that easy to access binaries from the kernel extensions any longer since they are not stored on disk but hidden in a big cache.
Please mention @0xCUBE in a post if a different Mac that is not on this list is confirmed to boot.
This is an unconfirmed list of machines Apple dropped, but that have managed to boot Ventura
(regardless of the patches/method required to enable them, * denotes GPU metal API patch support with appropriate GPUs, whereas + indicates non-metal acceleration patch support):
MacPro3,1 *
MacPro4,1 *
MacPro5,1 *
iMac13,1 (21.5") *
iMac14,1 (21.5") *
iMac14,3 (21.5") *
iMac15,1 (5k) *
iMac16,2 (21.5") *
iMac17,1 (5k) *
MacMini4,1
MacMini5,1
MacMini6,1 *
MacMini6,2 *
MacMini7,1 *
MacBookAir2,1
MacBookAir3,2 +
MacBookAir4,2 (13") +
MacBookAir5,x *
MacBookAir6,1 (11") *
MacBookAir7,x *
MacBook4,1
MacBook5,1 +
MacBook5,2
MacBook6,1
MacBook7,1
MacBook8,1 *
MacBook9,1 *
MacBookPro4,1 (15" and 17") +
MacBookPro5,x
MacBookPro6,1 (17") +
MacBookPro7,1 (13")
MacBookPro8,x
MacBookPro9,2 *
MacBookPro10,1 *
MacBookPro11,1 *
MacBookPro13,3 *
...to be continued!
Even using a supported metal GPU on pre Haswell systems fails because the AMD driver stack (AMDRadeonX4000GLDriver.bundle) now uses AVX2 instructions. AVX2 use will not be limited to the kernel and drivers. You may check this link about the current situation.
For all of who have installed Ventura on any supported/unsupported devices you may use this method to check for AVX2 instructions hidden in any executables or libs. Unfortunately is is not that easy to access binaries from the kernel extensions any longer since they are not stored on disk but hidden in a big cache.
Please mention @0xCUBE in a post if a different Mac that is not on this list is confirmed to boot.
To avoid frustration or even worse data loss please create and maintain backups on a regular basis. Before performing a major and even bevor doing a minor macOS update create a new backup.
Do not swim ahead of the swarm of macOS users, you have an unsupported Mac, neither Apple nor the OCLP developer team will recover your system. If you nevertheless believe installing beta software with development patchers on unsupported Macs nobody can or will help you. Follow the swarm. Observe posts and read about new problems and do not ask if is is safe - it is not!
Look up Apple support pages how to manage and create multiple parallel macOS installations using APFS volumes. Keep the latest working macOS and create test environments with new test users before messing with your single working Mac. A lot of problems are related to incompatible settings inherited in a decade of macOS updates and from incompatible third party software.
Do not swim ahead of the swarm of macOS users, you have an unsupported Mac, neither Apple nor the OCLP developer team will recover your system. If you nevertheless believe installing beta software with development patchers on unsupported Macs nobody can or will help you. Follow the swarm. Observe posts and read about new problems and do not ask if is is safe - it is not!
Look up Apple support pages how to manage and create multiple parallel macOS installations using APFS volumes. Keep the latest working macOS and create test environments with new test users before messing with your single working Mac. A lot of problems are related to incompatible settings inherited in a decade of macOS updates and from incompatible third party software.
All hardware still supported with Monterey but dropped from Ventura support will get Apple software and firmware updates until late summer 2024. To apply those (valuable and often necessary firmware) updates you need to install and update Monterey on your system. All firmware upgrades are bundled into the supported macOS Monterey updates, only. Ventura will not provide those firmware updates, since your Mac is not supported by Apple with Ventura!
The most easy way to achieve this is having an APFS container (aka volume) in parallel with your new Ventura installation. No user data needs to be copied in there. Just boot Monterey when you get an Monterey update notification and apply this update.
Note that when booting a supported OS to get firmware updates it must not be booted via OpenCore. Press alt/option on boot and do a PRAM reset before booting back into Monterey.
You may drop (delete) this basic Monterey installation after Apple stopped delivering new updates in autumn 2024. You will not get new firmware releases.
(If you read this section after 2024 just prepare your unsupported system by installing once the latest Monterey version released by Apple including all updates to get the latest firmware update installed. You may drop this Monterey installation after this procedure.)
Another method to update the firmware has been described on this site. It requires some system admin technical skills.
The most easy way to achieve this is having an APFS container (aka volume) in parallel with your new Ventura installation. No user data needs to be copied in there. Just boot Monterey when you get an Monterey update notification and apply this update.
Note that when booting a supported OS to get firmware updates it must not be booted via OpenCore. Press alt/option on boot and do a PRAM reset before booting back into Monterey.
You may drop (delete) this basic Monterey installation after Apple stopped delivering new updates in autumn 2024. You will not get new firmware releases.
(If you read this section after 2024 just prepare your unsupported system by installing once the latest Monterey version released by Apple including all updates to get the latest firmware update installed. You may drop this Monterey installation after this procedure.)
Another method to update the firmware has been described on this site. It requires some system admin technical skills.
Bad news:
TM (time machine) restoring and MA (migration assistant) is broken on root patched systems. Do not try, system will only arrive in an unbootable and uncorrectable state after hours of restoring or transferring data.
There are two ways around this:
1. Use the OCLP USB installer and install Ventura on top of your current (supported or unsupported) macOS. This will retain your current user data. But create a final TM backup before leaving your supported macOS installation, it will be the only return ticket.
2. Simply use MA or TM before system has been root patched by the OCLP app. This is sometimes difficult to achieve when auto-patching ran before you even reached the login page. You can prevent auto-patching by creating an USB installer manually (createinstallmedia and install OpenCore manually).
TM (time machine) restoring and MA (migration assistant) is broken on root patched systems. Do not try, system will only arrive in an unbootable and uncorrectable state after hours of restoring or transferring data.
There are two ways around this:
1. Use the OCLP USB installer and install Ventura on top of your current (supported or unsupported) macOS. This will retain your current user data. But create a final TM backup before leaving your supported macOS installation, it will be the only return ticket.
2. Simply use MA or TM before system has been root patched by the OCLP app. This is sometimes difficult to achieve when auto-patching ran before you even reached the login page. You can prevent auto-patching by creating an USB installer manually (createinstallmedia and install OpenCore manually).
After many requests, we've finally opened up a way for people to make monetary contributions to OCLP's development, using Open Collective: https://opencollective.com/opencore-legacy-patcher If you appreciate what we do, please considering donating! Your support will help us purchase needed hardware to improve the project. Thanks!
To revert back to the last supported (by Apple) macOS version you must erase your disk as there is no uninstall option provided by Apple and there is not way around this. You should follow Apple supported methods to get back, but create a user data backup before starting to erase the internal disk!
A lot of known issues exist, do not expect fixes and please do not even ask for fixes - this constant noise only ruins motivation of all people involved into this project.
A complete step by step guide is available in the OCLP documentation. Please read this documentation before you start the installation process. Please understand only USB installer based installations are supported.
Support is limited to legacy Apple systems only as listed within the docs.
Please keep the USB installer, it is a simple recovery tool in case your shiny new Ventura installation breaks for some reason.
OCLP gets regularly updates, please check those updates by reading the release notes and the full changelog.
This will be great!
Last edited:
