OS X El Capitan: How to downgrade new Apple OS back to Yosemite

Pixabay

Apple has just unveiled a slew of new products and services, including and a new operating system, the OS X El Capitan, among them. However, with the new platform just recently unveiled, and with some concerns about El Capitan cropping up, some fans who have already updated to the new platform may yearn for their old OS.

The good news is that although Apple has already focused its sights on support and updates for OS X El Capitan, many fans who find the new platform lacking can still downgrade and roll back their Macs to their previous Yosemite environment.

According to MacWorld UK, users who want to revert back to the Yosemite OS will find the Recovery mode not much of a help since this feature is only for reinstalling a system (because of corruption or data errors) that is currently installed on the Mac, which is already El Capitan. Meanwhile, having a Yosemite installer data (either a digital or physical copy) will also not help since Mac automatically conforms to the newest OS platforms. So with El Capitan already installed, the system will most likely not run the Yosemite data.

However, if the user has a Time Machine backup disk, noted IBTimes, it could be used to roll back to Yosemite from El Capitan.

First, the user should make sure that the Time Machine disk has a backup copy of Yosemite. Next, the computer should be rebooted, with the user holding the Command and R keys simultaneously, only releasing the keys when the Apple logo appears. This will take the user to the OS X menu and the OS X Utilities window.

Under the Utilities window, the user should then select the "Restore from a Time Machine Backup" option and click on Continue. When the system asks which backup source to use, the user should select the disk containing the backup data, which in this case is the Time Machine Backup. Doing so will open a new window with a selection of previous Apple platforms available, with Yosemite being the 10.10.X version. Clicking on Continue will open the Destination window, which is usually the Mac HD. Finally, clicking on Restore will close the windows, and the user should then wait for the computer to restart to finish the reverting process.