Downgrade MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2015) from El Capitan to Yosemite or Mavericks

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Downgrade MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2015) from El Capitan to Yosemite or Mavericks

I need to install Mavericks or Yosemite on a MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2015) that currently has El Capitan (10.11.1)

I've created a USB Boot disk trying both terminal commands and Disk Maker X 5. Booting off the USB drive while holding the Option key only gives me the universal "no" image:

I've also tried to boot into the "rescue" partition to format the hard drive, but I still get the "no" symbol when I try booting off the USB Mavericks drive I've created.

An apple tech suggested I post my question here because Apple does not support downgrading operating systems.

I've created thew USB boot drive on a different Mac then I'm trying to downgrade....would that matter? They both have El Capitan...

Is it even possible to downgrade this particular model of Macbook Air?

Please help - THANK you!

MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)

Posted on Nov 21, 2015 4:01 PM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

141,150 points

Nov 21, 2015 9:25 PM in response to Bacon Salt

Bacon Salt wrote:

I've created thew USB boot drive on a different Mac then I'm trying to downgrade....would that matter?

Yes: Use the version of OS X that came with your Mac, or a compatible newer version - Apple Support. Your MacBook Air probably needs Yosemite at least, and won't run Mavericks at all.

I do not know what Disk Maker X 5 does but creating a bootable USB installer should follow this Apple Support document: Create a bootable installer for OS X - Apple Support

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