Other Making Steam work again on unsupported macOS after discontinuation

[TheLightDeveloper]

As of November 2024, installing Steam for the first time is no longer possible on OS X 10.11 to 10.14 and attempting to do so will result a deadlock or cause an error message, saying that it needs to be online to update or saying “Steam is no longer supported on your operating system version” in other instances. Fortunately, this can be easily be resolved by forcing the client to install a certain version archived by Wayback Machine and then updating to last version after login. This is by far the safest/cleanest method to do without relying other peoples files that may be tampered with.

This guide is partially based off from light’s Blog: Steam Client Downgrades & Survival Kit to only include macOS related instructions. Huge shoutout to them for making this possible.

1. Install Steam as normal. Do not the open the app once you drag it to the application folder.
2. Open Terminal and run this command:
   
   

   open -a Steam --args -forcesteamupdate -forcepackagedownload -overridepackageurl https://web.archive.org/web/20231212191717if_/media.steampowered.com/client -exitsteam

   
   As the app downloads the files from the Wayback Machine, it may take up few minutes depending on the speed.
3. (only for 10.13/10.14 users) Reopen Steam as normal. Login into Steam, and if you want to go to the last version available for your desired macOS version, update your client right away through “Steam > Check for Updates…”
4. To prevent unintentional updates which may cause the client to be bricked, create a steam.cfg on /Applications/Steam.app/Contents/MacOS with this:
   

   BootStrapperInhibitAll=enable
   BootStrapperForceSelfUpdate=disable

Congratulations! Steam now works again on your system You can now enjoy your 32-bit games again!

Extra information to note:

• Instructions for OS X 10.10 and older will not be provided due to the complexity that Valve has made in the past few years (new login changes in mid 2020, requiring some hacky methods to work around, and downloading games is completely non-functional past 2021 and older clients). There is Steam API Emulator, which can be used launch Steam games without depending on the client itself and does work on 10.6 and newer. Presumably, the 2023 client may work on 10.10 since it still uses CEF v85 in the client itself (please confirm!)
• As Valve is committing to remove macOS related binaries from their existing games source tree in a few years from now, it won’t be long until they are completely incompatible by the time future major updates come to their games. As of December 2024, Half-Life 1 (including other games based on it), Half-Life 2(?) and Team Fortress 2 are known to not work as their macOS binaries are completely removed. HL1 and HL2 can be fixed by reverting to their pre-20th anniversary update.

Images:

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

You're a lifesaver. That is the best instructions I've seen (most other sites had pages and pages and pages of things to try) and got my "not supported" anymore version working again.

It's utterly beyond me why the people at Steam could not simply leave a final working version for us to use or an offline option. I used Steam for over two months with no complaints from it (I hadn't booted it since last year) and when a game (Sam & Max episode) crashed the desktop while changing to a new resolution, it reloaded Steam and updated and killed it dead (no options; nothing would work that was already installed, etc.). I mean even the badges and cloud saves were still working 100%. I can understand network games perhaps losing support, but using Chrome of all things as a crutch/excuse to dump all game support for bought and paid for games that otherwise still run fine on these machines with no way to set them to just run offline is unforgivable, IMO.

This is precisely why people should be wary of streaming movie "purchases" and the like. They can take them away from you without a 2nd thought/notice and so far the court system doesn't seem to care. I still buy all my music albums (including newer Atmos surround ones) on blu-ray. If they don't offer a blu-ray version, I don't support them.