OS X Mountain Lion Compatible Macs & Incompatible Macs: EveryMac.com

OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion" Q&A - Updated August 31, 2012

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Which Macs are compatible with OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"? Which Macs are not compatible?

In the company's promo copy, Apple officially notes that the following general Macs support OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion:

iMac (Mid-2007 or newer)
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
Xserve (Early 2009)

Identification Help

If you're not sure which Mac you have and need help to identify it, look it up with EveryMac.com's Ultimate Mac Lookup.

This feature makes it easy to lookup any of these Macs by the Model Identifier listed in software (select "About This Mac" under the "Apple" menu and click "More Info"), its Serial Number, and a variety of other methods.

Mountain Lion Compatible Macs

More precisely than the official info, the following list of Macs support OS X Mountain Lion, provided that they have 2 GB of memory, at least 8 GB of available storage space, and are running Mac OS X 10.6.8 "Snow Leopard" or later, which includes any version of OS X 10.7 "Lion." If you need to upgrade the RAM or storage in your Mac, EveryMac.com's Mac Upgrades section can be helpful.

However, please note that all Macs on this list are not fully compatible with OS X Mountain Lion, as many do not support the AirDrop, AirPlay Mirroring, or Power Nap features:

Of course, subsequently introduced Macs will be compatible with OS X Mountain Lion for as long as it is the current version of the operating system.

Mountain Lion Incompatible Macs

All earlier Intel-based Macs, as well as PowerPC-based Macs, are not compatible with Mountain Lion. Most notably, Apple does not support Mountain Lion on these Intel-based systems that support Lion:

Unofficially, however, it is entirely possible to run Mountain Lion on many of these systems -- albeit some with limitations -- with hardware upgrades and/or software hacks.

Also see:

What is "AirDrop"? Which Macs are compatible with the "AirDrop" technology?
What is "AirPlay Mirroring"? Which Macs are compatible with AirPlay Mirroring? Are there any "hacks" or third-party apps to use AirPlay Mirroring on unsupported Macs?
What is "Power Nap"? Which Macs are compatible with Power Nap?
How can I upgrade or "hack" an incompatible Intel Mac to run OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion"? Is it even possible?

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