Need help downgrading Mac Mini 2011

Hey I've been trying for a while to downgrade from high sierra back to something like snow leopard because high sierra doesn't run very well and I've come to find it's extremely difficult to do so as my mac seems to lock out my attempts of downgrade and I don't know what to do at this point. Please help!

The only way I know to downgrade is to save all your data - documents, pictures, videos, etc, to an external drive. Next do a clean install of the OS of your choice. If it is Snow Leopard you will need the install disks. You will have to reinstall any apps especially if you are choosing Snow Leopard. Apps that run on High Sierra most likely will not run on Snow Leopard.

I am assuming you have a Snow Leopard disk? It is very out of date and Apple no longer offers updates. Just something to think of.

Lisa

I actually want to downgrade to mavericks but I can't get high sierra off it. I try to have a clean install but it just won't run the software and I have a copy of Snow Leopard as that was the last thing that came in physical media really. Idk why Apple makes it so hard to downgrade a device haha.

Pop on the OS X.6 DVD and reboot, hold down 'C'.

Go tr Utiiities and select Erase and format Mac OS X Extended, back toi Installer and run. If you want to save all your files back up first.

Holding down C doesn't seem to be working do I just need to go to a recovery mode?

I kept updating it a while ago I forgot where I started at but I want to be at Mavericks and it's not in my shop history so idk how to get a clean copy for it even though I know I had it on here before

If Mavericks is not listed in your "Purchased" items from the Mac App Store, then it's no longer available to you. And since Mavericks was a download only from Apple, you may be out of luck. What kind of problems are you having with High Sierra that you need to downgrade to Mavericks? By downgrading you may run into more problems so you need to think very carefully before taking that step. And, always make a verifiable backup first.

High Sierra doesn't run very good on my Mac mini. I just don't have enough ram for it. I just want to bring it back to factory settings which I've talked to apple about. I've done all I can and I think I have the solution I want. thank you for all of your posts.