Wipe and install macOS High Sierra on MacBook Air (Late 2010)

What's your advice?

Not to give it to your daughter. That Mac is way too old for any recent browser or much of anything else Internet-related for that matter. Most people would consider that "basic things" especially her school-age peers who have never known anything else. As such it will be an endless source of frustration and misery for anyone at any age.

If she is a computer whiz then it's a different story — she can install Linux Mint on it and have a very robust machine capable of running the latest software. In that case just give it to her as is, because a young computer whiz won't have any trouble at all finding out how to install Linux.

Otherwise, please do both you and her a favor and buy a new Mac. For example, refurbished Macs can be had for substantially less than $1000. They absolutely positively must be Apple Certified Refurbished, purchased online directly from Apple. Accept no imitations since there are an abundance of fraudsters selling "refurbished" Macs that are more accurately described as "used". Never buy a used Mac.

Start here: Refurbished Mac - MacBook Neo - Apple

ValBragh wrote:

Hi all— a little IT question for you 😊

I’m trying to revive an old MacBook Air 13” (Late 2010) that I have at home. It’s currently running OS X Lion 10.7.5, and I’d like to completely wipe it and install a newer macOS version — ideally High Sierra or others (??).

I’m not expecting to turn it into a super machine 😄. I’d just like to give it to my 11-year-old daughter as her first computer for school, so basic things like browsing, documents and PDFs would be more than enough. What's your advice?

I actually have a 2010 MacBook Air, 13". At the time of purchase, it was called the "ultimate MacBook Air," with 4 GB memory and 256 GB flash storage.

I agree with John Galt and also recommend against having a young person use such a computer:

• It is too old to install/run any supported versions of Microsoft Office programs, Adobe software, or practically any other commercial tools or software.
• Mine works remarkably well with only 4 GB, but that is the max it can have and compared to newer machines it will always be slow. With at most 256 GB, that's very little storage, although mine is more than 50% free.
• It has only USB 2.0, which is at best 48 MB/s but in practice closer to 20 MB/s. This can be frustrating, especially when she sees other computers executing at 1000x that speed. Also, modern peripherals may not be able to connect to those USB 2.0 ports.
• It only supports 802.11a which is outmoded WiFi. Mine still works over WiFi but performance is low compared to modern equipment. You may have to reconfigure your router to accept a client with that old interface. Even if you do, at other locations she may have trouble connecting since they may not be as flexible.
• At 16 years, parts are wearing out on a 2010 laptop. Mine passes the SMART tests but with warnings that the SSD is wearing out. Also, the battery is down to 81% capacity on mine, and I doubt replacement batteries are available for that model. A young person or student with a laptop that has a poor battery will be very frustrated.
• Even if you get High Sierra installed on it (that's what mine has), you will find that many web sites either don't work or splash a warning across the top that it is an unsupported browser that is outdated.
• Security is way out of date on a 2010 laptop, although maybe it is so old that modern intrusion methods will fail! Hide in plain sight!
• It is not compatible with all the present day iCloud options, although some still work. However I disabled my Apple ID on mine because being so old, it could fail at any time and I don't want to deal with trying to unassociated an Apple ID from a failed computer.
• You said you wanted it for "browsing, documents and PDFs." For browsing, it will be impaired as a growing number of sites won't work (which you can mitigate at least some by using Firefox instead of Safari). As for "documents," that will be very limited due to it being incapable of running anything close to current versions of any word processor, spreadsheet software, etc. Files provided at school might not be accessible, nor might web sites. PDFs will likely work through either the built in Preview or an old archived version of Adobe Reader, but many PDF features (which schools do utilize) won't work. Modern file formats for images and video will likely not work.
• Almost all games simply won't work. An 11-year old will want to do some games, I am sure. Also, I expect things like Facebook, WhatsApp, or most social media will also fail to work or will be very impaired. You might not approve of those things but most young people would be quite frustrated with such an old and not capable device.

I think a working 2010 MacBook Air is a fun historical museum piece but not a good idea for a young person and student who actually wants a usable computer. The slowest iPhone or Apple Watch is much much more capable than that laptop.

Getting High Sierra installed on that Mac, and associated with your daughter's Apple ID (not yours), may be a bit of an "interesting" task.

Lion is so old that I don't believe that it can access the Support article How to download and install macOS - Apple Support, or the App Store link for High Sierra, within. You would probably need to use a modern Mac or PC to put the .DMG file containing the Sierra installer onto a USB flash drive, so you can transfer that installer to the old Mac. Then you'd want to format a spare external drive, install Sierra on it (by running the installer under Lion),, start up from the external drive, wipe the internal drive, install Sierra on it, and make sure that the Mac was associated with your daughter's Apple Account. Finally, you could boot off the internal Sierra installation, visit the Support article, and use the App Store link to get the High Sierra installer.

If you do all that, you could then install

• Firefox 115 ESR, an older version of Firefox. (Mozilla – Firefox users on macOS 10.12, 10.13 and 10.14 moving to Extended Support Release. It's dated, but is probably just about the only browser that's even half-up-to-date, and half-supported, for High Sierra, at this point. Mozilla has given it many "stays of execution" and now says that they plan to provide critical security updates until March 2027.

The current version of Firefox requires Catalina or higher. Current versions of most of the other major third-party browsers require Monterey or higher. The current version of Safari requires Sequoia or higher. So as you can see, High Sierra is just hanging onto the edge of being useful for browsing the Web by its fingernails.

Another possible issue: I don't believe that Apple ever issued a patch to High Sierra to address the problem of a key security certificate expiring around the end of January 2027.