A decade prior, switching to OS X had been a revelatory experience, as though the software was working in perfect sync with my mind. That feeling had long since disappeared. Each update seemed to chip away at something I liked about the platform. I needed to switch to a different operating system.
I surveyed the computing landscape. Windows was still fine, and Linux was still Linux. A normal person would have just picked one—but I was apparently not a normal person. I cared far too much about having the perfect computer, and I just couldn't get that wonderful memory out of my head...
What follows is partly my journey, and partly a guide for anyone who wants to follow in my footsteps. I don't know whether I recommend following in my footsteps, because it does take some work, but the results can be wonderful. If you're ready, here's how to do it.
Once I had decided to try downgrading my computing life, I needed a single version to settle on. I knew I wanted an operating system from before Apple abandoned the Aqua design language. I find that the classic design's strong sense of depth and rich color contrast makes my computer a lot more pleasant to use. And for reasons I can't explain, it also makes window management in particular a lot easier for me.
I experimented with three candidates inside Virtual Machines: OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, and OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Mountain Lion was quickly eliminated:
Mountain Lion does have a more capable version of QuickTime, which I ultimately brought over to Mavericks. More on that later.
Choosing between Mavericks and Snow Leopard was more difficult. Snow Leopard has achieved something of a legendary status in the collective memory of many tech enthusiasts, and it's an operating system I have personal nostalgia for. Snow Leopard also supports Rosetta, potentially opening up a new library of classic PowerPC apps. However:
I do prefer many of Snow Leopard's default settings, but these can be recreated in Mavericks with a simple post-install script.
Mavericks it is.
Every Mac released between October 2008 and September 2014 is capable of running Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks. Maybe a friend has something in their closet?
Some notable models include:
If you don't need portability, the 2013 Mac Pro's Xeon processors and dual AMD FirePro GPUs remain extremely powerful in 2025!
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the tiny 11" Macbook Air will not win any awards for speed, but it is super easy to pick up and carry around. Apple doesn't make computers this small anymore.
This is the laptop I use as a secondary computer while travelling. Make sure to find one with 8 GB of memory!
If you want something portable but a bit more capable than a Macbook Air, these will run Mavericks beautifully. Beware: you are looking for the model originally released in July of 2014. The "Late 2014" models released the following October do not support Mavericks.
Whatever computer you choose, consider getting the battery replaced if it's a laptop. You may need to find a repair shop.
For myself, I built a Hackintosh to serve as my primary workstation. I wanted a system that would be old enough to run Mavericks, but powerful enough that I would never notice its age. Five years in to the experiment, this machine is still much more than sufficiently fast.
My hardware:
The primary limitations are as follows:
Full Hackintosh instructions are beyond the scope of this website. However, I've put together a collection of tools and minimal guide which may work for you, depending on your hardware. This collection is based around the older Clover bootloader, because that's what I use on my own system.
Alternately, you can use the modern OpenCore bootloader. Dortania's OpenCore Install Guide is very comprehensive and includes information for older operating systems such as Mavericks.
For some inexplicable reason, Apple's website does not offer a Mavericks download link. Their official list skips straight from Mountain Lion (10.8) to Yosemite (10.10). Perhaps Apple knows that Mavericks is just too good?
No matter. We can download Mavericks from Apple's OS Recovery Server. Open the Terminal app on any Mac (press ⌘-space and search for "Terminal"), then type or paste in the following and press return:
curl mavericksforever.com/get.sh | sh
If you're familiar with shell scripts, you may want to read the script before running it.
A Mavericks DMG image will be downloaded to your current working directory. If you can't find it, it may be in your home folder. A second file, "create-bootable-installer.command", will also be created alongside the DMG. To create a bootable Mavericks USB installer, insert a USB drive and open this second file.
You may already know how to do the rest. Insert the USB drive into a Mavericks-compatible Mac. Turn off the Mac, then turn it on with the option key held down. When asked to select a disk, choose the USB drive.
Whenever I've finished installing Mavericks, the first thing I do is open Terminal and run:
curl mavericksforever.com/postinstall.sh | sh
This script will
The result of this script represents how I want to be greeted by a fresh Mavericks system.
We need a modern web browser! Luckily, the incredible i3roly has us covered with Firefox Dynasty, a fully up-to-date version of Firefox modified to work on old versions of OS X. It works just like mainline Firefox, with every website that mainline Firefox does.
I created a small Preference Pane which makes it easy to download new builds of Firefox Dynasty, and attempts to make Firefox better comform to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. All real credit goes to i3roly.
After installing the Preference Pane, I recommend completely deleting the ancient version of Safari included with Mavericks. Safari 9 is not safe to use in 2025!
sudo rm -r /Applications/Safari.app
Firefox Dynasty covers our web browsing needs, but we'll still run into trouble with other internet-enabled apps. Dictionary will say it can't connect to Wikipedia, and Mail will be unable to load many embedded images.
These problems stem from Mavericks's outdated implementation of HTTPS/SSL/TLS. To fix them, use Aqua Proxy:
Aqua Proxy is what's typically referred to as a local "Man-in-the-Middle Proxy Server". It sits between you and the internet, captures your computer's traffic, and modifies it to be compatible with modern servers before sending it on its way.
The Unicode Consortium has introduced a lot of new emojis since Mavericks was released. We need to add them to Mavericks!
This will be short. Please do grab a USB hard drive and use it to set up Time Machine in System Preferences.
Backups are good, and once Time Machine is set up, you can make a change to your system and then easily undo it later. For example...
If you try to drag the Chess app to the trash, Finder will complain that "'Chess' can't be modified or deleted because it's required by OS X." Finder is wrong; Chess is not required, and you can delete it using the Terminal.
I don't play Chess. I also don't use iTunes, don't own any DVDs, and don't read Apple iBooks on my computer. So, on a fresh install of Mavericks, I like to open the Terminal and run:
sudo rm -rf "/Applications/Chess.app"
sudo rm -rf "/Applications/DVD Player.app"
sudo rm -rf "/Applications/iTunes.app"
sudo rm -rf "/Applications/iBooks.app"
Don't you love how hackable everything is? Removing stock apps from the Applications folder is completely safe—nothing will break—and this is your computer, so you should make it your own. You can always restore apps later using Time Machine. Just don't delete System Preferences, or anything in the Utilities folder.
Apple has not released a security patch for Mavericks since 2016. Today, it an inherently vulnerable operating system, and you will need to be a bit careful. Regularly back up your data to cold storage, never use an outdated web browser, and always keep your router's firmware up-to-date.
Although they are by no means comprehensive, I've also made some security patches you should install:
After installing the Font Security Patch, you must keep System Preferences → Security & Privacy → General → Allow apps downloaded from set to "Anywhere", because the patched file has a different code signature.
Logging into internet accounts from Mavericks can be a bit tricky sometimes. Here are guides for some common online services:
To log in to a Google account from Mavericks, you will need to use an "app password" in lieu of your normal password. Go to myaccount.google.com/security and select "2-Step Verification". If 2-Step Verification is turned off, turn it on (there is no way to avoid this). Then, select the "app passwords" option, and follow the instructions to create an app password.
You should now be able to sign in to Google in System Preferences → Internet Accounts by using your app password in lieu of your normal password.
Certain unusual Google accounts require an alternate sign in procedure. If you are using an app password but still can't seem to sign in, follow the below instructions. This is usually not necessary.
Start by logging in to System Preferences → Internet Accounts with the standard username and password for your Apple Account. System Preferences will say that "an Apple ID verification code is required" and you should recieve a verification code on one of your other devices.
Sign in again, but this time, put your password followed by the verification code you recieved into the password field. For example, if your password was correcthorsebatterystaple and your verification code was 123456 you would put correcthorsebatterystaple123456 in the password field.
Make sure Aqua Proxy is installed. Then:
Wait at least 30 minutes without attempting to sign in to any Apple services. Then:
If anything goes wrong, you may need to wait 30 minutes before trying again.
On most Apple accounts, Reminders created in Mavericks will not sync to other Apple devices via iCloud. To use Reminders across multiple devices, I recommend using The Good Cloud:
To see your Reminders on other devices, add your The Good Cloud account to those devices using the same information as on Mavericks. For example, on iOS 25, open Settings and search for Reminders, then navigate to Reminders Accounts → Add Account → Add Other Account... → CalDAV Account. Enter the same server address, user name, and password as above.
iCloud Keychain will not work on Mavericks. I recommend using Bitwarden to manage passwords.
Notes created in Mavericks will not sync to modern Apple devices via iCloud. To use Notes across multiple devices, I recommend creating a dedicated Google account exclusively for Notes.
You will not be able to log in to FaceTime on Mavericks.
I just love watching videos in QuickTime Player X! It has a beautiful interface which gets out of the way when I don't need it but comes back exactly when I do.
Unfortunately, QuickTime works with very few video formats. It used to have a plugin infrastructure, which would have made it possible to add support for new video codecs like VP9 and HEVC—but wouldn't you know it, Apple removed plugin support beginning with version 10.3 introduced in, wait for it, Mavericks!
Well, that won't do! Replace QuickTime 10.3 with this patched version of QuickTime 10.2 from Mountain Lion.
Now install some components so QuickTime can play more types of media!
With these components installed, QuickTime should be able to play every mainstream video format you come across.
There is one caveat. Some modern video formats require a lot of processing power to play at full speed. Newer devices use "hardware decoders" built into their chips to play these formats, but Mavericks-era hardware does not have that luxury. Your mileage will vary depending on your computer, the type of video, and the video's resolution and framerate.
Now all we need are videos to play in QuickTime! Here are some ways to get them.
Download Youtube videos by highlighting the link, right clicking, and choosing Services → Download Video. It will appear in the Movies folder when ready.
To download from Firefox, click and drag your mouse over the text of the URL to highlight it before you right click. Merely clicking to highlight won't work due to a Firefox bug.
Next, let's make Apple's other apps work with more types of files. I want to be able to open 7z files in Archive Utility and WebP images in Preview. These apps don't come with a built-in plugin infrastructure like QuickTime, so we'll need to install SIMBL.
Now we're ready to install some SIMBL plugins!
For most formats, Archive Utility works by calling command-line programs such as tar or gunzip to do the actual decompression. We can do that too! The plugin tells Archive Utility to use a copy of 7zz included in the bundle to decompress new formats.
Preview natively uses QuickLook generators to display iWork and Microsoft Office documents. The QuickLook API is well-documented, and many third-party generators exist, including for all the formats we'd like to work in Preview! Unfortunately, Preview has a built-in whitelist of file types it will display via QuickLook generators. The SIMBL plugin merely adds new formats to this whitelist.
Finally, some additional options for customizing your amazing Mavericks system!
And with that, your computer should be all set up! If you're looking for more compatible apps, head over to the app library!