Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion made free for download

Apple made Mac OS X Lion and Mac OS X Mountain Lion available for download for free here in the summer of 2021. This is the first time either version of the software was available for free. All versions of the operating system released after these cat-themed releases were delivered for free to users of Apple products.

Starting with Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Apple started making updates to their operating system free for compatible devices. You can still buy Mac OS X lion and Mac OS X Mountain Lion from the Apple store for approximately $20 each, but they've also been made available for free through Apple support documents.

If you head to the Mac OS X Lion Installer page or the Mac OS X Mountain Lion Installer page, you can drop in and download each operating system version for free.

If you're looking to download Mac OS X Mountain Lion, you'll need at least OS X Snow Leopard, Lion 10.7, or Mountain Lion 10.8. You'll also need 2GB memory, and 8GB data storage. If you're looking to download Mac OS X Lion, you'll need OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or OS X Lion 10.7 (weird, right?) already installed. You'll also need 7GB data space and 2GB memory on your machine.

This version of the Mac OS X Lion installer has a file size of 4.72GB in and of itself, and it was first posted (for free) on June 23, 2021. The current version of the Mac OS X Mountain Lion Installer was posted on June 23, 2021, and has a file size of 4.45GB.

These downloads will more than likely be used by IT specialists aiming to recover data from older Apple computers. While some of the oldest viable Apple hardware may still have recoverable data, software used to recover said data isn't always compatible with the operating systems on the devices that'll be the target of said software. This free pathway to updates makes the whole process a whole lot simpler.