I was able to get CloudReady running on a 2014 Mac mini and a 2012 13″ MacBook Pro. Here’s how to get CloudReady up and running on an old Mac. This means that Google offers an officially sanctioned way of reviving old computers with Chrome OS. Just last year, Google acquired Neverware, the company behind CloudReady. CloudReady isn’t a new product by any stretch, but I had always been itching to try it out. Is it worth it?Īs you can see, it’s really easy to install ChromeOS Flex on a Mac and as you’re able to reverse the process, there’s nothing to lose.Īlthough there are some incredibly powerful Chromebooks on the market, most people experience Google’s OS on low-powered, budget laptops. Given a bit of hardware grunt, even with old spec machines, ChromeOS Flex flies and gives a free pass into the Google ecosystem. The only thing missing, at the moment, is the Google Play Store to give ChromeOS Flex full access to millions of apps, games, moves and music. Fingers crossed Google will remedy this omission soon.Is there an old out-of-date Mac that you desperately miss using? Well, you’re in luck because it’s incredibly easy to install a modern version of Chrome OS on old Intel Macs for free. Stage 1: Create the ChromeOS Flex bootable USBĪs Google warned, ChromeOS Flex completely erased and re-partitioned the drive on the Mac, so to restore OS X requires a complete re-installation. On most Intel Macs (including the one I used), then restarting the Mac and pressing Option + Command + R after the chimes will begin the process. However, your Mac may differ, and Apple has a few options for you to try. Chrome packages for versions of OS X, going back to 10.6, can be found via the Other Platform link at the bottom of the page.įinally, you’ll also need a USB stick (8G or larger) which will be wiped during the procedure. Next, Google Chrome is required to create the installation media, which can be downloaded from the Chrome website. Firstly, Bluetooth isn’t available during the install procedure, so if your Mac uses a Magic Keyboard or Magic Mouse, you’ll need to temporarily swap in a USB version. We’ll show you how to revert to Bluetooth devices in the article. Things you need to knowīefore you install ChromeOS Flex on an Apple Mac, there are a few things to mention. ChromeOS Flex is an easy way to turn all sorts of machines into a Chromebook. It’s a functional, lightweight operating system which works well on a wide array of modern hardware, but is especially useful at breathing new life into older computers. Although ChromeOS Flex isn’t yet a finished product, it’s robust enough for us to recommend that you give it a try, but perhaps not on your day-to-day ‘critical’ machine. So, have a dig in the back of the wardrobe for that unused machine which still hasn’t made it to the recycling centre, and we’ll show you how to install ChromeOS flex on a Mac.

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