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How to downgrade your Mac to an older version of OS X using an external drive

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Roxsanne Roush wants to go back in time. She purchase a 2011 iMac that had El Capitan installed, but needs to run a previous version of OS X as she relies on Adobe Creative Suite 5.5. She wants to revert to Mavericks.</p>

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I do not have any backups, etc. But I have not done much on the machine and have no files that I need to save. What would be the best way to take my Mac from El Capitan to Mavericks? I am very unfamiliar with any of this.</p>

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It always makes me nervous moving backwards with operating systems, because so much can go wrong, and you can be left in the lurch, and have to wipe your system. The easiest way to revert is to install an older, compatible version of OS X on an external drive.</p><p class="jumpTag"><a href="/article/3150465/macs/how-to-downgrade-your-mac-to-an-older-version-of-os-x-with-an-external-drive.html#jump">To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here[/url]</p></section></article>

Source: How to downgrade your Mac to an older version of OS X using an external drive (http://www.macworld.com/article/3150465/macs/how-to-downgrade-your-mac-to-an-older-version-of-os-x-with-an-external-drive.html#tk.rss_all)