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OpenCore Legacy Patcher

A python program for building and booting OpenCore on legacy Macs, see Supported SMBIOS on whether your model is supported.

Supported features:

  • System Integrity Protection, FileVault 2, .im4m Secure Boot and Vaulting
  • Native OTA OS DELTA updates on all Macs
  • Recovery OS, Safe Mode and Single-user Mode booting
  • Zero firmware patching required(ie. APFS ROM patching)
  • GPU Switching on MacBook Pro models(2012 and newer)

Note: Only clean-installs and upgrades are supported, installs already patched with Patched-Sur or bigmac cannot be used due to broken file integrity with APFS snapshots and SIP.

  • You can however reinstall macOS with this patcher and retain your original data

Note 2: Currently OpenCore Legacy Patcher only supports macOS 11, Big Sur installs. For older OSes, please use Dosdude1's patchers

How to use

See the online guide on how:

Patcher Warnings

Since this patcher tricks macOS into thinking you're running a newer Mac, certain functionality may be broken:

  • Boot Camp Assistant.app
    • We recommend running the assistant on a natively supported OS, running via the patcher may result in unforeseen issues
  • Legacy Windows Booting
    • Currently OpenCore cannot boot MBR-based installs, so Ivy Bridge and older Machines may not be able to see Windows in OpenCore's Boot Picker
  • Boot Buddy support
    • Due to how OpenCore overwrites NVRAM , the usage of Boot Buddy and such tools are highly in-advised