are you having trouble downloading garageband onto your mac well you're not alone this seems
to be a big issue affecting a lot of mac users at the moment let's dive in a quick note before
we dive in if you are familiar with some of the fixes i'm going to be talking about in this video
already you can use the time stamps down below to skip to something that you're
more interested in and avoid me waffling on about something you all already know about
the latest version of garageband version 10.4
is only available to users who are running mac os 11 big sur so if you haven't updated to big sur
doing so will allow you to download garageband from the mac app store simple right well uh no
hardware and software compatibility issues and mac os updates go hand in hand nowadays unfortunately
so holding off from updating to apple's shiny new operating system until all the wrinkles have been
ironed out is perfectly understandable having said that most big issues with big sur have
now been sorted a quick google search will be able to tell you whether a particular piece of hardware
or software that you rely on is compatible with big sur another issue you may run into regarding
big sur is the age of your mac machines older than six or seven years old are unable to install
apple's latest operating system and as such are unable to install the latest version of garageband
owning an older mac can actually stop you from accessing any version of garageband but more
on that later if you have a machine older than the model's displayed on screen now then unfortunately
you won't have access to big sur or garageband version 10.4 if you do decide to update to mac os
big sur then as always make sure you do a time machine backup first that way if you do have
compatibility issues or just hate it or something you can always revert back to your current setup
if you don't currently have garageband installed on your mac
and can't access the latest version via the mac app store but have had
it downloaded and installed at some point using the icloud account tied to your current machine
open the mac app store click on your face it's in the bottom left of the window for me
it may be somewhere else for you if you're running a version of mac os older than mojave scroll
through this list of previously purchased apps until you find garageband click to download it
and the last available version that is compatible with your machine will be installed on your mac
no this won't be the latest version of garageband version 10.4 it'll most likely be version 10.3.5
which despite looking different from the current version works in exactly the same way so you're
not missing out on any big new features or anything like that by using this previous version
this issue is heartbreakingly disappointing stuff from apple in fact the only way i'm gonna
get over it is if you yes you restore my faith in humanity by showing me some thumb love down below
if you've bought an older big cert incompatible mac second hand and don't have any purchase
history linked to your icloud account then you're probably wondering how you can download
an older version of garageband that work with your machine right like there must be a link
or a web page somewhere on apple's website that allows users with all their macs to download a
version of garageband that's compatible with their machines right right right well no no there isn't
well that about takes care of everything for this video i'm kidding i'm kidding look i have no
idea why apple have decided to effectively block new users with older macs from downloading older
versions of garageband from the mac app store especially as on ios when you go to garageband's
ios app store listing on an older device and hit download you're told that this version isn't
supported and asked if you'd like to download the latest version your ios device supports
it's bizarre i honestly thought i must be missing something really obvious so i reached out to apple
support on twitter figuring that surely they'd be able to point me in the right direction after
offering the solutions i've already mentioned in this video they invited me to dm them for more
info which i did after meeting them in dm the apple support person went on to say
that it does not appear that there is a way to get an older version of garageband without
owning the software previously they went on to say that i could schedule a
call with a garageband specialist to discuss further which i did the person on the phone was
very nice and was genuinely trying to be helpful but in the end confirmed that there is currently
no way to get an older version of garageband unless you've owned the software previously
so there's your definitive answer it can't be done not officially anyway while researching
this i came across a couple of videos that claim to show how you can download an older version of
garageband not from apple but from a third party website it all looks a wee bit shady to me so
i'm not going to share links to those videos here but if you search on youtube they're not
difficult to find if you're desperate and want to go the bootleg route if you don't fancy that i'd
suggest contacting apple directly either via apple support or even better through the garageband
feedback page yes apple have a garageband specific feedback page apparently and you can voice your
concerns about this issue there you may think meh what's the point but feedback like this has helped
fix garageband before back when version 10 was first released apple ripped out all third-party
plug-in functionality leaving the program pretty much unusable for all but the most basic functions
q a massive backlash from users and within a month all of those features were put right back into
the program so definitely take some time to send apple some feedback about this problem right then
if you're hungry for more garageband flavored knowledge bombs you can check out my garageband
for beginners playlist right here take care of yourself see you next time bye for now