Come Out Mac OS

Updated and republished for macOS 11.3; skip it unless you really really care about all the macOS releases. Originally published on November 14th, 2005.

1. Apple Inc.
2. Macintosh

Below the break is a table showing all major releases of macOS (previously Mac OS X) from the public beta through the latest public version, which is 11.3, as of April 26th—the 148th release in total.

Note: Click the ⓘ symbol to read Apple's release notes for a given update.

The following was culled from Apple's support downloads page, and as such, some of the dates may be off just a bit. If you know for certain that something is incorrect, please let me know and I'll get it fixed. (Scroll to see all entries.)

Note: The Days column reflects the number of days between releases.

Some entries may appear out of chronological order (i.e. 10.5 is shown on Oct 26, but above Nov 14 for 10.4.11). This is to keep the version numbers in the proper order, even when an older OS received an update after a major new release came out. This has happened a few times over the years.

• While Apple's previous iPod media players used a minimal operating system, the iPhone used an operating system based on Mac OS X, which would later be called 'iPhone OS' and then iOS. The simultaneous release of two operating systems based on the same frameworks placed tension on Apple, which cited the iPhone as forcing it to delay Mac OS X 10.
• Jun 22, 2020 The original version of Mac OS X (which Apple rebranded to macOS to better match its iOS, watchOS, and tvOS software brands with the release of macOS Sierra back in 2016) was released as a public.
• The history of macOS, Apple's current Mac operating system originally named Mac OS X until 2012 and then OS X until 2016, began with the company's project to replace its 'classic' Mac OS.That system, up to and including its final release Mac OS 9, was a direct descendant of the operating system Apple had used in its Macintosh computers since their introduction in 1984.

Press the power button on your computer to put it to sleep, or choose Apple menu Sleep. Wait a few moments, then press a key on your keyboard or click your mouse or trackpad to wake your Mac.

Apple Inc.

Some random notes, updated from the original post:

• Starting with the Public Beta and up through 11.3, there have been 148 macOS releases, both major and minor. This figure includes the one odd macOS X release: 10.2.7. This version was only for the then-new PowerMac G5 and the flat panel iMac G4, and was never generally released.
• As of April 26th (11.3's release date), it's been 7,530 days since the Public Beta was released. So on average, we've seen some sort of update every 51.6 days.
• The shortest time period between any two releases is six days, which is how quickly the 10.15.5 Supplemental Update 1 came out after the 10.15.5 release.
• The longest time period between any two minor releases is 165 days, which was how long we waited for the 10.4.9 update. (Tecnically, it's actually the 192 day interval between the Mac OS X Public Beta and version 10.0, but I'm counting from the official 10.0 release.)
• The smallest update was 10.3.1, at only 1.5MB. The largest (non-combo, non-main OS release) update was 11.3 at 5.71GB.
• The '???' entry for Size on a given release indicates I was unable to find the size. Feel free to contact me if you can help replace any of the '???' entries.

Macintosh

And now, gratuitous graphics…

Releases by version number

Releases by year

A special 'thank you!' goes to Mr. Ziebell (for providing some size values on very-old minor updates), and to Benton Quest (for providing size info on all the major releases up through Snow Leopard). See Benton's comment below if you want a nicely detailed history of those early releases.

Come Out Mac OS