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Helpful answers
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Sep 22, 2016 5:11 PM in response to AmyChienby Kappy,You must download the upgrade installer from the App Store. Your choice now is Sierra.
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Sep 25, 2016 5:29 AM in response to AmyChienby MichelPM,★HelpfulOS X 10.9 Mavericks is no longer available.
If you need a newer, but older OS X version, your only other option now is OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion which is a pay download code version.
OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion purchased emailed download code here.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/D6377Z/A/os-x-mountain-lion
Apple will send you an email for the special download code for the Mac App Store, for OS X 10.8.5 Mountain Lion within three days of purchasing the download code.
Before embarking on a major OS upgrade, it would be wise, advisable and very prudent if you have a good,working backup of your current system to an external connected and Mac formatted Flash drive OR externally connected USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire 800, Mac formatted hard drive. Then, use either OS X Time Machine app to backup your entire system to the external drive OR purchase, install and use a data cloning app, like CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper, to make an exact and bootable copy (clone) of your entire Mac's internal hard drive. This step is really needed in case something goes wrong with the install of the new OS or you simply do not like the new OS, you have a very easy way/procedure to return your Mac to its former working state.
Next,
If you run any older Mac software from the earlier PowerPC Macs, then none of this software will work with the newer OS X versions (10.7 and onward). OS X Snow Leopard had a magical and invisible PowerPC emulation application, called Rosetta, that worked seamlessly in the background that still allowed older PowerPC coded software to still operate in a Intel CPU Mac.
The use of Rosetta ended with OS X Snow Leopard as the Rosetta application was licensed to Apple, from a software company called Transitive, which got bought out, I believe, by IBM and Appe could no longer secure their rights to continue to use Rosetta in later versions of OS X.
So, you would need to check to see if you have software on your Mac that maybe older than, say, 2006 or older.
Also, check for app compatibilty here.
If you have any commercial antivirus installed and/or hard drive cleaning apps installed on your Mac, like MacKeeper, CleanMyMac, TuneUpMyMac, MacCleanse, etc. now would be a good time to completely uninstall these apps by doing a Google search to learn how to properly uninstall these types of apps.
These types of apps will only cause your Mac issues later after the install of the new OS X version and you will have to completely uninstall these types of apps later.
Once you have determined all of this, you should be able to find the latest versions of OS X by clicking on the Mac App Store icon in the OS X Dock and then login to the Mac App Store using your Apple ID and password and if you purchased a download code, input that code.
You can then begin the download and installation process of installing the newer versions of OS X from the Mac App Store.
Another issue that the Safari web browser for OS X 10.8.5 is out of date and no longer being supported, as well as, recently, no iTunes updates any longer.
You will need to use an alternate web browser for OS X10.8.5.
Also, the Mozilla Firefox browser has ended new feature support for OS X 10.6.8-10.8.5, but is still offering security support in the form of the Mozilla Firefox ESR (Extended Security Release) web browser until April 2017.
Mozilla FF ESR found here.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/
Good Luck!
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Sep 22, 2016 10:27 PM in response to AmyChienby MichelPM,Also, if you live in the U.S. and you really need to be running OS X 10.9 Mavericks, if you have a local Apple Store you can call and travel to, call them and ask if the Genius section can install OS X Mavericks onto your iMac for you.
You still need a backup.
Good Luck!