How to get my Lightroom back after change of laptop from Windows to Mac

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
December 4, 2021
3 replies
736 views

I bought my Lightroom licence in 2014 for my Windows laptop. I have now changed to a MacBook Air and am trying to put Lightroom on it. On my Adobe account page I have only the option to try or buy. I already own the licence. How do I sort this please? I have spent quite some time with an online chat agent who said I should ask the forum!

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Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Which Mac operating system do you have?

I ask because your old Lightroom will need an old OS to support it. In a pinch, you could get Parallels virtual machine for your new Mac and run Win10 on Parallels. The cost for latest Parallels is 80 Euros/year.

Or you can get a Creative Cloud Photography Plan for $120/yr (no virtual machine or Windows 10 required).

- Photoshop CC and Photoshop on iPad,
- Lightroom on desktop, mobile and the web,
- Lightroom Classic,
- Portfolio website + hosting,
- Bridge,
- 20 GB cloud storage (upgradable to 1 TB).
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography.html

Do whichever works best for you.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

John Waller

Community Expert

Unlike other Adobe products, the perpetually-licensed (pre-Cloud) versions of Lightroom were multi-platform. The same serial number could be used on Mac and Windows.

I have now changed to a MacBook Air

If your MacBook Air is running Catalina, Big Sur or Monterey operating systems, particularly the Apple M1 chip, then you will not be able to install your old version of Lightroom anyway because of changes made by Apple which mean that older legacy software cannot be installed without workarounds which are beyond the scope of most people other than power users.

Lightroom Classic - the modern name of the old perpetually-licensed Lightroom - is subscription only now. So, if you do have a current model MacBook Air, you'll have to subscribe to a Cloud plan such as the Photography Plan.

John T Smith

Community Expert

You said "perpetually-licensed (pre-Cloud) versions of Lightroom were multi-platform"

Original person said "bought my Lightroom licence in 2014"

The problem now will be finding a Mac download that is 7 years old

John Waller

Community Expert

Yes, you're right, John, although it's a non-issue if @JanMallorca wants to run it on a MacBook Air running Catalina or later since Lightroom of that vintage cannot be installed anyway.

Lightroom 3, 4, 5 and 6 installers are still available from Prodesigntools. 2014 sounds like Lightroom 5 so the link would be here.

https://prodesigntools.com/lightroom-5-ddl-comparison-vs-lr4.html

As Nancy says, options do still exist for running LR5 is this scenario although they're quite involved and still require some expense.

Those versions would have to be installed by either running LR5 (Win) on a Parallels/Win 10 virtual machine on the Macbook Air or dual boot with an external drive running LR5 (Mac) on Mojave.

However, I think we'd recommend a Photography Plan to @JanMallorca although that obviously comes with an ongoing commitment to a subscription.