New life into old Mac
Does your Mac sigh when it starts or creak when it calculates? We’re here to help
With the weekly shop costing more than a car and everything from energy to entertainment suppliers charging eye-watering prices, many of us are choosing to hang on to our Macs for a little bit longer. And that’s a wise choice, because with a little bit of TLC, Macs can last for a very long time. With some Macs, inexpensive hardware upgrades can deliver a serious speed boost – and with all Macs, a bit of tinkering and a few alternative apps can make a massive difference too.
It’s important to be realistic, of course. macOS Ventura won’t run on a Power Mac G4 and you won’t get M2-beating performance from the 667MHz processor of a 2006 aluminium MacBook Pro. But pretty much any Mac of relatively recent vintage can be tweaked, given extra storage and in many cases given more memory too.
In this feature, we’ll breathe new life into all kinds of Macs. We’ll discover how to safely install the macOS versions Apple doesn’t want your Mac to run, and we’ll also take a look at the apps you can use if Apple’s own apps are no longer being updated for your system – in most cases, without you having to spend any money at all. And we’ll discover the tools you can use to access files from longgone apps too.
That’s not all. We’ll show you how to make a clean installation of macOS to clear out the electronic lint that every computer accumulates, and we’ll take you through the process of swapping out your storage or boosting your RAM – something that’s pretty much impossible on the most modern Macs but pretty straightforward and very affordable for older ones.
We’ll also show you some fun stuff, such as the emulators that enable you to experience or revisit the Macs, the apps and even the games of the 80s and 90s.
Patch your Mac
Keep your Mac up to date, even when official support stops
One of the most important things you can do with your Mac is keep it up to date, and for current versions of macOS and Mac apps that’s usually straightforward: just ensure automatic software updates are available for both your operating system and your apps and you’re good to go. But things become more complex with older software, such as operating systems that Apple no longer supports or apps that the developer doesn’t. In some cases, you can find an alternative to now-defunct apps, but what if you need to access files made in an app that Apple no longer lets you run?
Apple may have locked out 32-bit apps in macOS 10.15 (Catalina) but you can still run them in emulators such as WINE, Parallels, VirtualBox or Retroactive (github. com/cormiertyshawn895/Retroactive). That last one’s particularly great for creative types who need to open files from apps s
