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How can I uninstall OS X Yosemite and return to OS X Mavericks?

How can I uninstall OS X Yosemite and return to OS X Mavericks?

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 3:09 PM

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Posted on Oct 17, 2014 3:17 PM

  1. You must have a fully bootable Mavericks system from which to boot the computer. You can then erase the volume with Yosemite, then clone the Mavericks system to the empty volume you just erased.
  2. You can erase the drive and reinstall Mavericks if you have a USB Mavericks installer flash drive.
  3. You can boot the computer via Internet Recovery and reinstall the original version of OS X that came with the computer. This is only feasible on models from 2011 to the present.
600 replies

Aug 10, 2015 12:35 PM in response to Kappy

Hi Kappy,

Quick question about downgrading from Yosemite to Mountain Lion:

I've read your instructions and it's all clear to me. Just wanted to confirm that it's not possible to downgrade WITHOUT having to erase the disk.

If erasing the disk is the only option, do you know if Time Machine will let me import Applications & Files only?

It's my brother's computer I'm checking about and I'm not sure which OS X version is in his latest time machine back up.

Thank you very much!

Julieta

Aug 17, 2015 4:46 PM in response to astrach

I have a MacBook Pro (Mid-2012) running Yosemite currently. I want to downgrade to Mountain Lion, since that's what came preinstalled on the mac, but when I tried the Internet Recovery option, it said I couldn't complete the operation because I had a newer version installed. Any way around this? My time machine backups from mountain lion/mavericks were deleted... any ideas?

Sep 12, 2015 10:16 PM in response to JWFP

JWFP wrote:


Can i go back to a previous version of OSX Yosmite (10.10.5 -10.10.3)

You would need to erase the drive and use an earlier full installer.


But why would you ever want to. 10.10.5 contains numerous security fixes and hundreds of bug fixes. AFAIK, there are no apps which were OK earlier that were broken by 10.10.5.

How can I uninstall OS X Yosemite and return to OS X Mavericks?

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