Running Snow Leopard on a 2018 Mac Mini

Question

Level 1

4 points

Running Snow Leopard on a 2018 Mac Mini

Hello. I recently received a 2018 Mac Mini. I'll be migrating from a 2009 Mac Mini, where I'm currently running Snow Leopard and patched versions of High Sierra and Catalina. I want to be able to use SuperDuper for backups, but apparently it has problems restoring backups of APFS volumes (e.g. Catalina and later versions of macos). Anyway, despite all the comments to the contrary, High Sierra (copied from my 2009 Mac Mini using dd) works fine on an external drive on the 2018 Mac Mini, except wireless isn't seen (but the wired connection works fine). Perhaps the comments refer to the inability to instal a new copy of High Sierra, but I'm simply running an installation that works on a 2009 Mac Mini.

I would like to be able to also run Snow Leopard so that I can continue to use PPC-based programs. However, when I select my Snow Leopard volume (copied from the 2009 Mac Mini), the 2018 Mac Mini starts "Network Restore", which appears to be macos Recovery from a later macos.

Does anyone know whether it is possible to run Snow Leopard on the 2018 Mac Mini? thanks

Posted on Jun 18, 2025 12:01 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,030 points

Jun 18, 2025 2:22 PM in response to sjjmac

You cannot run an operating system natively that is older than the one that shipped with the 2018 Mac Mini. That rules out Snow Leopard. Your Late 2018 Mac Mini shipped with macOS 10.14.* (Mojave).

The desktop version of Snow Leopard is not supported as a virtual machine guest. You will need the hard to come by Snow Leopard Server DVD which you may still find on Ebay.

Copying a Snow Leopard volume from an older Mac is not going to work in a virtual machine. As time passes, some virtual machine vendors may be dropping support for old macOS releases, and may require something much newer for the host operating system. If you go the VM route, look before you leap. Ideally, you should have the Core i7 and at least 32 GB RAM. I put VM guests on an external speedy SSD (e.g. Crucial X8 or X9) plugged into a TB3 port and prevent Time Machine and Spotlight sniffing that external drive.

Reply

Answer 2

sjjmac Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 30, 2025 8:02 AM in response to VikingOSX

Just to close this out:

On the Mac Mini 2018, other than several GNU/Linux distributions, I now run only Sequoia. I was able to get Mojave to boot, but it would reboot a second time going between Mojave and Sequoia, and I didn't really have any Mojave applications that I needed. I wanted to be able to run Snow Leopard and High Sierra, since those operating systems have software that I still use.

After installing the latest VirtualBox in Sequoia, I was able to define a 400 MB virtual disk and partition it using Disk Utility and gpt from the Terminal window of a Snow Leopard installation disk, and Snow Leopard installed. I was then able to use SuperDuper to back up the Snow Leopard and High Sierra volumes on my Mac Mini 2009 and eventually restore them in VirtualBox on my Mac Mini 2018. I'm only able to use about 20 MB of video memory, but I can allocate 8 GiB of system memory. Unfortuanately, I can assign only one CPU, otherwise the guest OS panics. The screen is a little jumpy in High Sierra, but ok in Snow Leopard. I haven't checked VirtualBox yet in Debian to see whether it can handle virtualization better (i.e. assign multiple CPUs to a guest OS). But the main reason for the exercise was to have Rosetta in Snow Leopard to be able to access projects created in iMovie 5, and that works, though a litlle slowly in Snow Leopard with only one CPU.

Reply

Answer 3

dialabrain

Level 10

135,305 points

Jun 18, 2025 12:16 PM in response to sjjmac

Not directly. You might be able to run it as a virtual machine.

Reply

Answer 4

John Galt

Level 10

154,880 points

Jun 18, 2025 1:36 PM in response to sjjmac

If your Macmini8,1 can actually boot and run High Sierra, that's news to me. And, if wireless is the only thing that doesn't work, consider yourself fortunate. Keep using Ethernet. Or, perhaps find a third party wireless adapter.

Reply

Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

154,880 points

Jul 31, 2025 6:33 AM in response to sjjmac

Thank you for providing that thoroughly detailed description. Nice workaround.

Reply

Running Snow Leopard on a 2018 Mac Mini

Similar questions