Why can't I upgrade to Monterey?

Do you have an Apple SSD installed? That is required for some Mac's since the Monterey upgrade includes an update to the Mac's firmware and the firmware update requires an APple SSD be installed. After the firmware update/Monterey install, a non Apple SSD can installed in the Mac and be updated to Monterey

Unfortunately, this particular notebook model is too old to run macOS Monterey. The latest that it can run is macOS High Sierra 10.13.6.

What exactly happens when you try upgrading? That is, do you see any error messages?

At what stage does it fail:

• Accessing the macOS Monterey installer?
• Downloading the installer?
• Running the installer?
• Etc?

See if your Mac can run macOS Monterey.

Learn more about Mac

• iMac
• Late 2015 and later
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• Mac Pro
• Late 2013 and later
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• iMac Pro
• 2017 and later
• Mac mini
• Late 2014 and later
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• MacBook Air
• Early 2015 and later
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• MacBook
• Early 2016 and later
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• MacBook Pro
• Early 2015 and later
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Your Mac can't run Monterey:\.

Just because it can run High Sierra is not the only qualifier for it to run a newer version of macOS. If you need to use apps that require a newer OS, then your only option would be to upgrade to a newer Mac. In this case, you would need, at least, a 2013 MacBook Pro to run Monterey.

Yikes! Not enough coffee this morning. Thanks for the catch!

You're welcome. I'm off to get another cup.

You're welcome.

CarsonStud wrote:

I made an error on the Mac model ID which is easy given their sloppy methodology of model naming. Anyway, it is 2011, MacBook Pro8,1 13". I get the error message at the installer download step.

The maximum operating system that can be installed is macOS High Sierra (10.13.6). It is simply too old to install anything newer.

Tesserax wrote:

In this case, you would need, at least, a 2013 MacBook Pro to run Monterey.

*2015