2013 Macbook Pro OS Update/Partition Best Option?

July 29, 2022 9:46 AM

I have continued to run 10.9.5 Mavericks on my 2013 macbook pro, mainly to avoid interfering with programs I don't want to replace (Adobe CS6 Suit and Microsoft Office 2011). Unfortunately it's gotten to the point where available web browsers cannot handle websites that I need to use. What is the best way of preserving use of the programs I have installed but also getting a later version of OSX that can run updated web browsers?

What I have in mind is partitioning the hard drive between 10.9.5 and some more recent OSX addition, is this the most sensible approach?
Can I do so without uninstalling the the old programs?
What more recent version of OSX would make the most sense to upgrade to (specs are 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB Memory)?

Once I have an overall strategy I can probably google the details on how to do everything but what general order of operations should I do things in?

Thank you!

posted by 12%juicepulp to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

Another option is to run an older MacOS in a virtual machine, using something like Virtualbox or VMWare. I've done that a few times to run an application that won't work on the newer OS. That has the benefit that you don't need to reboot out of your primary OS when you want to use one of those apps, but it comes at the cost of some additional overhead that could impact performance (mostly I'd worry about RAM).
posted by primethyme at 10:07 AM on July 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

I am running CS6 on macOS 10.14.6 on a 2013 Macbook Pro (with a slightly slower processor than yours).

I believe there can be difficulties installing CS6 on more recent macOS versions (though there are workarounds), but if you upgrade with CS6 already installed, you should be OK. No idea about Office though.
posted by ssg at 10:46 AM on July 29, 2022

If you go the upgrade route, Microsoft Office 2011 will only work through Mojave (10.14).
posted by channaher at 11:15 AM on July 29, 2022

1. Mirror your entire drive to an external using Carbon Copy Cloner.
2 Boot from it to make sure it works, then boot back to your internal and disconnect backup. It’s good to have this on hand if the whole program goes south and you need to nuke and pave, then clone it back over back to where you were with minimum fuss.
3. Download and upgrade to either High Sierra or Mojave from here.

I have upgraded over top of many operating systems to this point, and my CS6 apps still work, (since OS 10.6) as does my old Office Suite. I would maybe suggest High Sierra instead of Mojave just because it might be a little less taxing on your machine, but Mojave is the last stop for 32-bit apps. Plus it will take up a little less hd space.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:40 PM on July 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Go as far as Mojave or High Sierra.

The 2013 MacBook Pro will run these versions of macOS -- but their lack of security updates means you don't want them online when you do.
Catalina is compatible with 2012 and 2013 MacBook Pro's in both 13" and 15" sizes, and Big Sur is compatible with the late-2013 refresh that has Thunderbolt 2 and fast SSD's. Both are getting security updates and allow you to run macOS on macOS on Apple hardware, so I suggest you create a working installation of the update and host it as a virtual machine inside an edition of macOS that's getting security updates.

For the on-disk installation:
Create a Time Machine and/or Carbon Copy Cloner backup to an external disk
Shrink the existing partition in Disk Utility
Install a fresh copy of macOS into the space space and recover your installed apps from the Time Machine backup
...or...
use Migration Assistant to pull your user profile and apps from the Carbon Copy Clone.

Once you are happy that's working, you can archive the Mavericks install to an external disk and ... basically do the same steps to replace Mavericks with Big Sur or Catalina for web access and running the older High Sierra or Mojave virtual machine. Thinking this through again, why risk updating working Macericks when you can wrap it in an secure up-to-date Catalina or Big Sur?
posted by k3ninho at 3:45 PM on July 29, 2022

The iCab browser has been continually supported since Mac OS 7.5, and I've been using it since 1999. It's a web Swiss army knife; it's easy to spoof the user string to work with sites that don't recognize it.
posted by Jesse the K at 6:26 PM on July 29, 2022 [1 favorite]

Definitely don’t go past Catalina. I put Big Sur on my 2014 MacBook Pro and it got unusably slow with the storyboarding software I needed it to run.
posted by brachiopod at 8:06 AM on July 30, 2022