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OS upgrade

I have an old Mac book air and it would not upgrade the OS from my side. Can I get an appointment for Genius Bar to get OS upgraded?

Posted on Oct 24, 2021 7:59 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 24, 2021 8:53 AM

First, you used the keyword old in describing your MacBook Air. That may incur limits on how far you can upgrade…


From the Apple () menu -> About This Mac panel, look at what is in parenthesis on your product description line. This will likely be a timeframe (early, mid, late) reference, a year, and your Mac model name). You want to check that string against operating upgrade hardware requirements in How to get old versions of macOS (using strictly the Safari browser). Then access the operating system link to the Mac App Store to get the full product download installer.


If upgrading from macOS Sierra (10.12.6) or earlier to macOS Big Sur, you will need 45 GB of available storage, and from High Sierra (10.13.6) through Catalina (10.15.7) to Big Sur, that available storage requirement is 35.5 GB.


Run a Time Machine backup of the current operating system and do not let the upgrade operating system perform a Time Machine backup to that drive. Also, if upgrading to Catalina or later, you will want the free Go64 application to show you the 32-bit applications that are not supported on Catalina or newer that only support 64-bit applications, printer, and scanner drivers.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 24, 2021 8:53 AM in response to VasPat

First, you used the keyword old in describing your MacBook Air. That may incur limits on how far you can upgrade…


From the Apple () menu -> About This Mac panel, look at what is in parenthesis on your product description line. This will likely be a timeframe (early, mid, late) reference, a year, and your Mac model name). You want to check that string against operating upgrade hardware requirements in How to get old versions of macOS (using strictly the Safari browser). Then access the operating system link to the Mac App Store to get the full product download installer.


If upgrading from macOS Sierra (10.12.6) or earlier to macOS Big Sur, you will need 45 GB of available storage, and from High Sierra (10.13.6) through Catalina (10.15.7) to Big Sur, that available storage requirement is 35.5 GB.


Run a Time Machine backup of the current operating system and do not let the upgrade operating system perform a Time Machine backup to that drive. Also, if upgrading to Catalina or later, you will want the free Go64 application to show you the 32-bit applications that are not supported on Catalina or newer that only support 64-bit applications, printer, and scanner drivers.

OS upgrade

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