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Apple now offers Mac OS X Lion, Mac OS X Mountain Lion for free

Apple makes older Mac OS X versions free for the first time

Users still hanging on to older Macs no longer have to pay $20 for their Mac OS X download thanks to new Apple support documents.

Apple stopped charging for Mac OS X with the release of version 10.9 Mavericks, but users looking for older versions had to pay for the download codes via the Mac App Store. Both Mac OS X Lion and Mac OS X Mountain Lion are still available for purchase for $19.99 each.

In new support documents discovered by Macworld, Apple will allow users to access the download codes for these old operating systems for free.

Those who are feeling nostalgic can download the installers and run the old operating systems on compatible hardware on a partition, or on modern machines in a virtual machine.

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20 Comments

j2fusion 13 Years · 153 comments

I wonder if Mountain Lion Server is also available for free. The user (non-server) version will not run in a Virtual Machine. Only the server version is licensed to run in a VM. 

lkrupp 19 Years · 10521 comments

Beats said:
Cheapskates rejoice!

Realize that there’s still a forum for OS 9 users too. Some people...

bobolicious 10 Years · 1177 comments

j2fusion said:
I wonder if Mountain Lion Server is also available for free. The user (non-server) version will not run in a Virtual Machine. Only the server version is licensed to run in a VM. 

Having licensed a newer version of Server as I recall prior versions were (happily) available...