In the past few years, the Hackintosh community has grown pretty fast and is still growing rapidly. Most of the people prefer macOS over windows when it comes to running productivity software, as they are more stable and some apps are available for macOS only. While creating a bootable macOS installer is a very straightforward and easy process but it can only be created from a macOS. Most of the people who want to build a Hackintosh don’t own a mac making building a Hackintosh a dream. In this tutorial, I will show you how you can install macOS Mojave on pc without having a mac.
- Can't Download Mojave Installer
- App Store Mojave
- Install Macos Mojave Application
- Install Macos Mojave App
- Download Mac Os Mojave App
- Download Mac Os On Windows
Coming to macOS Mojave, it was launched by Apple in WMDC 2018. macOS Mojave brings the most awaited dark mode, along with many several new features as well as improvements to existing features. In macOS Mojave, Apple made APFS conversion enforced whether you are using SSD or HDD. In high sierra, there was an option through which you could avoid APFS conversion, but it was removed in macOS Mojave.
If your Mac originally shipped with macOS Mojave or earlier: Use macOS Recovery to install the original version of the OS your Mac shipped with. This will completely wipe your Mac so make sure you do a backup. If you purchase a Mac with 10.15 Catalina or later installed: Install a VM (virtual machine) on your Mac and install macOS 10.14 Mojave. Download MacOS Mojave v10.14 (18A391) App Store DMG for Mac Free. Click on below button to start MacOS Mojave v10.14 (18A391) App Store DMG Download for Mac OS X. This is completely Tested and Working Latest Version Mac OS App of MacOS Mojave v10.14 (18A391) App Store DMG.
Can't Download Mojave Installer
Download the required files.
Note: A USB drive with size 8gb or more is required to follow this tutorial.
Before starting the tutorial, download the required files to create the USB installer.
Extracting the DMG to the USB drive.
1. Install transmac and open it as an administrator.
App Store Mojave
2. Plug in your USB drive
Install Macos Mojave Application
3. Select the USB drive from the side menu and right-click it and then select “format disk for mac”.
Please note that this step will erase the USB drive
4. Again right-click the drive and select “restore with disk image”, select the macOS Mojave DMG file when prompted.
Now sit and relax as this will take some time like 10-20 minutes depending on the speed of the drive.
Note: After the restoration process is finished, Windows may prompt you to format the USB drive as HFS file system is not supported in Windows. Cancel the prompt.
Related: Install macOS mojave 10.14 on VMware on windows
Installing Clover
Now that the DMG is fully extracted into the USB we can now proceed to install clover. I have not included clover in the DMG as it gets outdated quickly and as now clover provides zip file option, you can now install it from windows without much hassle. Alternatively, you can use opencore bootloader instead of clover, but in this tutorial, we will use clover since it is easy to install and setup as compared to opencore.
At first download the latest clover zip from their official GitHub release page. Extract the zip and copy all the contents into EFI volume (In USB).
Clone or download the config files Github repo of rehabman, it contains config files for intel processors, these config files contain basic configuration, any device-specific patches that are required by your device to boot the installer should be enabled by yourself. According to your CPU architecture select a config file and rename it to “config.plist”. Then copy and replace the file to clover folder inside EFI (USB).
The latest versions of clover are shipped with all the drivers that are required to boot macOS. Some of the drivers are kept in the off directory which means they are disabled by default. To enable them you just need to copy the files from drivers/off/UEFI/* to drivers/UEFI. Some of the drivers you need to copy:
Since most of the modern motherboard uses UEFI, you only need to copy the files from and to UEFI.
1. FileSystem -> ApfsDriverLoader.efi, VBoxHFS.efi
2. MemoryFix -> OsxAptioFix3Drv.efi
In some rare cases, clover may not show APFS drives, which means that due to some reason ApfsDriverLoader is not working. You can use APFS.efi driver which is basically same but unlike ApfsDriverLoader which loads the apfs drives from macOS system, it contains the driver in itself.
Now the drivers are all set up, lets now install the required kexts. In order to boot the installer, you need to install the required kexts only. Any unnecessary kexts may cause a kernel panic and stop the installer from booting. The kexts we are installing are the most basic requirement for booting the installer. However, your device may need some additional kexts for it to install properly.
Download the following kexts:
1, FakeSMC.kext
2. VoodooPS2.kext
FakeSMC is the most essential kext for booting the macOS Mojave installer without it you will never boot, VoodooPS2 is for making keyboard and mouse working.
Any other required device-specific kexts should be also downloaded any installed. Remember that you should not install any unnecessary kexts.
Copy the downloaded kexts into EFI/EFI/CLOVER/Kexts/others/
Installing macOS Mojave
Now that the macOS Mojave installer is finished and ready to install on your device.
If you wish to dual boot macOS Mojave with windows 10 we have a very detailed guide to help you out!
Some Post installing guides you might want to check out:
Apple’s new macOS Mojave doesn’t support the old Macs prior to 2012. It was a shocking news for me too.
You may also like to read the following posts:
I have an old, not for me actually, MacBook Pro which I purchased at the end of 2010. I was expecting Apple won’t drop the support of Mojave for MacBook Pro 2010 model, at least not for this time. But I was wrong. The latest Majove doesn’t support it too.
There is no need to worry. Even the oldest Windows 95 can be installed on Mac computer. There is a solution to every problem.
I don’t want to upgrade my MacBook Pro right now, especially when a new model is rumored to be released in next month.
Another choice for me was to buy a graphics card which supports Metal. In fact, it was the most feasible solution for to get installed Majove on my unsupported Mac right now.
Metal is natively supported by all Macs introduced since 2012. It means the following Nvidia, AMD and Intel family cards are compatible.
-Intel HD Graphics 400, Iris 5000 & 6000 family
-Nvidia GT 600M, 700M family
-AMD R9 M family
To check which GPU (graphics processing unit) is installed on your Mac computer, click on the Apple icon in the top left corner and then click on “About This Mac”.
There are a number of third-party vendors which sell graphics cards with integrated Metal support specifically designed for Mac computers. While searching for a compatible graphics card, I found that I could install Mojave on my MacBook Pro Mid 2010 model by using a software known as macOS Mojave Patcher Tool. Kudos to DosDude1 who developed tested, and released it as a free app.
By using this software, we could install the latest macOS version on early 2008 Macs.
Here is the step by step method to run Mojave on unsupported Macs.
The whole process can be divided into four parts.
- Part 1. Getting all the required things
- Part 2. Downloading the macOS Mojave Installer App
- Part 3. Making a bootable Mojave USB drive
- Part 4. Installing and Patching Mojave OS on the unsupported computer
We will discuss each part in details in the following paragraphs.
Part 1: Requirements to Run Mojave on Old Macs
Four things are required to get macOS Mojave installed on your forgotten-by-Apple Mac.
- Your Mac computer
It could be an early-2008 or newer Mac Pro, iMac, or MacBook Pro. The following models include under this category.
– MacPro3,1
– MacPro4,1
– iMac8,1
– iMac9,1
– iMac10,x
– iMac11,x
– iMac12,x
– MacBookPro4,1
– MacBookPro5,x
– MacBookPro6,x
– MacBookPro7,1
– MacBookPro8,x
It could be late-2008 or newer MacBook Air or Aluminum Unibody MacBook. The following models include under this category:
– MacBookAir2,1
– MacBookAir3,x
– MacBookAir4,x
– MacBook5,1
It could be early-2009 or newer Mac Mini or white MacBook including the following models:
– Macmini3,1
– Macmini4,1
– Macmini5,x
– MacBook5,2
– MacBook6,1
– MacBook7,1
And it could be Xserve2, 1 and Xserver3, 1.
- A USB drive in 16GB size or above
- macOS Mojave patcher tool. Download it here.
- A copy of the Mojave software.
Part 2: Download macOS Mojave Installer Software
MacOS Mojave software can be downloaded as an Installer App from Mac App Store using the computer which supports Mojave.
If you don’t have Mojave supported Mac, you can download the Mojave Installer App using patcher tool. Open the macOS Mojave patcher tool. If it doesn’t open and says it is from an unidentified developer, right click on the tool’s icon and click on “Open” from sub-menu and then enter your Mac’s Admin name and password. After the verification, you can open it with the left double-click.
If you don’t remember your macOS password, here are the solutions to reset it.
Go to Tools in the Menu bar and then hit “Download macOS Mojave”.
I recommend using the built-in downloader tool because it will download the latest and the compatible Installer app.
Mojave Installer app is about 5-6GB in size and it may take some time depending on the speed of your internet.
If the internet connection interrupts while downloading the file, don’t worry. The downloading process will resume where it left. Simply download the Mojave software again but point it to the same location where you were already downloading and saving the installer app.
Part 3: Create a Bootable Mojave USB Drive
In order to create a bootable Mojave USB Installer drive, follow these steps.
Step 1: Insert 16GB or above USB drive into your USB port of your Mac.
Step 2: Open Disk Utility and erase the USB drive in OS X Extended (Journaled) format. Give a proper name before erasing. I gave the name “macOS Mojave” to my USB drive.
If you are new to Mac, get the basic information about how to make a Partition, erase the current partition and how to make a bootable USB drive.
Step 3: After the drive is erased, open “macOS Mojave Patcher” tool.
Step 4: Point the Patcher tool to the downloaded Mojave Installer app which is downloaded in Part 2.
Step 5: Now select the target USB drive you just formatted.
Step 6: Hit the “Start Operation” button on the patcher tool and let it make the USB bootable with Mojave.
Step 7: It will show “Complete” when the process is done.
Part 4: Installing and Patching macOS Mojave
In this fourth and final part, we will install and patch the macOS Mojave on our old Mac computer. Follow the steps below to complete the remaining procedure.
Step 1. Restart your computer and hold down the “Option” key as soon as the Mac starts up.
Step 2: Select the USB drive, which was named as “macOS Mojave” as the startup disk.
Step 3: If you want to upgrade your current macOS to macOS Mojave, simply use the continue button to proceed and follow step 5. But if you want to install it on another partition or want to erase the current partition first, then follow the Step 4.
Step 4: Open Disk Utility from the bottom left panel.
Select the volume you want to erase. Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Or if you have got late-2009 and later machines with SSD drives, you can also use APFS format.
If you don’t want to install Mojave on current volume, you can also create a new partition and install it there. Mojave takes approximately 18GB space on hard drive. So at least make a 25GB partition to test the new macOS.
If you want to use it for all routine work, set the partition size according to your needs.
Step 5: Select the volume and press “Continue” to begin the installation process.
Step 6: The installation process takes about 20 minutes to complete. When it is done, reboot your Mac back into installer drive while holding down the “Option” key again.
Install Macos Mojave App
Step 7: This time select “macOS Post Install” app from the bottom left panel.
Step 8: Select the model of your computer and the volume on which you installed Mojave and then click the “Patch” button. The tool will automatically select the required patches according to the model of your computer.
Step 9: Press the “Reboot” button when the patch is complete.
Step 10: The computer will reboot with macOS Mojave installed on it.
Download Mac Os Mojave App
Step 11. If it doesn’t work properly on the restart, boot your Mac back into the installer USB drive, select macOS Post Install again, and this time also select “Force Cache Rebuild” option. Once the patch is complete and the cache is rebuilt, reboot.
Step 12: Upon restart, complete the setup process and start using your Mac with a Mojave operating system.
Happy Mojaving!!
For additional information and to know more about the known issues, please visit DosDune1’s website. He is an awesome guy.
Note: You will see a new “Patch Updater” app in the Applications under “Other” folder. It will alert you when new patches are available for your computer.
Download Mac Os On Windows
Your Mac will get the future Mojave updates as other supported computer do. If you don’t see the updates, or your computer doesn’t work properly after applying the update, use the step 11 of Part 4 to enable all patches.