My wife's old MacBook 2013 needs a complete reinstall of macOS. High Sierra is preferred. However, I followed the guideline from Apple Support but I can't download macOS High Sierra app on my MacBook Air M4. It says:
Not compatible with this device.
How can I make a bootable high sierra bootable usb on apple silicon mac? I can't use the createinstallmedia command as the install app is not available for download on my mac.
Thanks
MacBook Air (M4, 2025)
Short answer - Impossible
The Bootable Installer can Only be performed on an Apple Computer
This will have to be performed from a Qualifying Computer to run the version of macOS to be made on the Bootable Installer.
Example : Bootable Installer of High Sierra would have to be done on a computer that Qualifies to run High Sierra
Notation: If the computer being used to perform this action is Too New ( M4 Apple Silicon ) or Too Old to qualify to run the version of macOS - this computer can’t be used.
Alternative is, to gain access to a Qualifying Apple Computer from a family member, friend or associate.
Friendly advise 😎
The Apple Support Community Forums are sometimes visited by AI / LMM / ChatBots.
AI / LLM are basically a Super Version of Predictive Text which is based upon a Data Set.
When that Data Set is based upon older data points, the outcome of the response will be equally out dated and / or unreliable
AI is also the newest form for Data Mining by Large Corporations.
Suggest being very careful about this.
Some suggestions can be incorrect, misinformed , incomplete, impossible to do as per evidenced elsewhere in this question.
Short answer - Impossible
The Bootable Installer can Only be performed on an Apple Computer
This will have to be performed from a Qualifying Computer to run the version of macOS to be made on the Bootable Installer.
Example : Bootable Installer of High Sierra would have to be done on a computer that Qualifies to run High Sierra
Notation: If the computer being used to perform this action is Too New ( M4 Apple Silicon ) or Too Old to qualify to run the version of macOS - this computer can’t be used.
Alternative is, to gain access to a Qualifying Apple Computer from a family member, friend or associate.
Friendly advise 😎
The Apple Support Community Forums are sometimes visited by AI / LMM / ChatBots.
AI / LLM are basically a Super Version of Predictive Text which is based upon a Data Set.
When that Data Set is based upon older data points, the outcome of the response will be equally out dated and / or unreliable
AI is also the newest form for Data Mining by Large Corporations.
Suggest being very careful about this.
Some suggestions can be incorrect, misinformed , incomplete, impossible to do as per evidenced elsewhere in this question.
Servant of Cats wrote:
Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
In the section "Download the full macOS installer", it says
"You might• need to download from a Mac that is compatible with the macOS you're downloading. If downloading an older macOS, you might also need to create the bootable installer on an older Mac that is compatible with it."
My guess is that for High Sierra and later, you "would need to" download the installers from a compatible Mac. The installers for High Sierra and later are behind App Store links – and the App Store would do compatibility checks.
Correct.
I don't know if you might have more luck with downloading an El Capitan or Sierra installer. (The installers for those OSes are available as .DMG files that you can download directly without going through the App Store.)
Correct. However, they require a compatible Mac as well in order to extract the full installer into the Applications folder from the .pkg file within the DMG file.
The "Use Terminal to create the bootable installer" section doesn't have a sample command line for Sierra. I would guess that this was an unintentional oversight, and that the command would be
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume
The macOS 10.12 Sierra installer is actually broken when it comes to creating a bootable macOS Sierra USB installer. It has been broken for many years now even after we alerted Apple to the problem. There is actually a simple fix which involves modifying one character within one of the installer's files, but this is too much for Apple to fix apparently. There are multiple posts on this forum by myself & some others where this fix is mentioned.
by analogy to the one for High Sierra. That still leaves open the issue of whether createinstallmedia would work at all for the purpose of creating a bootable Sierra installer on an Apple Silicon Mac.
No, it will not work. I tried it for macOS Catalina from an installer I had archived. Only macOS 11.x+ installers can use that command (macOS 11.x was the first official OS for the 2020 M1 Macs).
Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
In the section "Download the full macOS installer", it says
My guess is that for High Sierra and later, you "would need to" download the installers from a compatible Mac. The installers for High Sierra and later are behind App Store links – and the App Store would do compatibility checks.
I don't know if you might have more luck with downloading an El Capitan or Sierra installer. (The installers for those OSes are available as .DMG files that you can download directly without going through the App Store.)
The "Use Terminal to create the bootable installer" section doesn't have a sample command line for Sierra. I would guess that this was an unintentional oversight, and that the command would be
sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume
by analogy to the one for High Sierra. That still leaves open the issue of whether createinstallmedia would work at all for the purpose of creating a bootable Sierra installer on an Apple Silicon Mac.
If you got lucky, and "it was Christmas", and you did get a bootable Sierra installer, then once you'd installed Sierra on the old Mac, you could proceed to make a bootable clone backup of the old Mac, and then have the old Mac get the High Sierra upgrade from the App Store.
You can boot into Internet Recovery Mode using Command + Option + R to access the online macOS installer which would most likely give you macOS 11.x Big Sur for a 2013 model (possibly macOS 10.15 Catalina if an Early-2013 model).
If you only want macOS 10.13 High Sierra, then you can use the instructions in the following Apple article for creating a bootable macOS 10.13 USB installer:
Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support
If the laptop is currently able to boot into macOS (normally or into Safe Mode), then use the Apple article to create the bootable installer. Otherwise, use Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R) to erase the Mac & install whatever OS you are given. Once you can boot the laptop normally, then you can create a bootable macOS installer for the OS of your choice. Of course you will then need to erase the whole physical SSD followed by installing your preferred version of macOS onto it. There may be a few steps, but these steps are guaranteed to work assuming you have a good Internet connection and the hardware of the 2013 laptop is good.
So why can’t you put your wife’s MacBook in recovery mode and reinstall macOS from her MacBook? Why are you wanting to make a bootable USB installer in the first place? And why on your M4 Mac Mini which you have discovered you cannot do anyway.
I’m not following your logic here. You simply cannot make a bootable USB for an Intel based macOS on your M4 Mini, the end.
I am afraid that it is not possible to create a bootable drive for an older macOS version on your new Mac
Make high sierra bootable usb on my mac m4?
