Make sure to download straight from your purchase history. Look for the macOS Server app in your Purchase History and click DOWNLOAD. This can be done by either going to the Finder/Menu bar and clicking “Store” then “View my Account” or by clicking on your account name in the bottom left corner of the App Store window. Make sure you are logged into the same iTunes account you used to purchase macOS Server. Open up the App Store on whichever Mac you are attempting to install macOS Server on. Download the older version of Server on the Mac running an older version of OS X. You can cancel as soon as it starts to download. On the Catalina OS X computer, login to the App Store and purchase a new version of OS X Server. Purchase a new version of MacOS server on a Mac running Catalina. Once you have purchased Server you can then download the older version of Server to your older OSX. So you may need access to a mac running OSX Big Sur to make the actual OSX Server purchase.

The only way to purchase Server is to be running Catalina. (Note, according to the comment below this now needs to be Big Sur, Updated Feb 2021). If you try to ‘purchase’ OSX server on this older OS it will say that MacOS Server is not compatible with the older OS. I used El Capitan but any version prior to Mojave will work. This is the Mac you will run OSX server on. You will need access to two Macs to do this.įirstly you will need a Mac running an older version of OS X. You need need to purchase OSX server on a newer Mac running Catalina, then go to an older Mac signed in using the same Apple ID and grab the older version of Server from the Purchase history. With OSX Mojave 10.14 Apple killed off OSX server, but it is still possible to download an older version from Apple that still works. OSX server was particularly powerful running on a Mac Mini.

A server can allow you share files, run your own email or web server, remotely connect in to your office etc. Apple used to have a fantastic application called OSX Server (now called MacOS Server) which allowed you to run a full server from any OSX computer.

Ftp server mac os catalina