Did your new Mac come without a built-in CD/DVD drive? If you have an older Mac you can use a feature called Remote Disk to share the older Mac’s CD/DVD drive with your newer Mac. Here are instructions on how to set up that feature:
Make sure that both Macs are connected to the same network. Then do the following on the older Mac.
- Click on the Apple menu and select System Preferences.
- Click on Sharing.
- Insert a checkmark next to DVD or CD Sharing.
- Uncheck the box to “Ask me before allowing others to use my DVD drive.”
- Insert a CD or DVD into the older Mac. (Read this note from Apple that points out that not all types of discs are supported.)
On your new Mac, that doesn’t have a built-in CD/DVD drive, do the following:
- Click on the Finder icon on the Dock. This will open a Finder window.
- On the left-hand sidebar of the Finder window click on Remote Disc.
- To the right, click on the older Mac’s name.
- In a few seconds you should see the CD or DVD that you put into the older Mac.
You should be all set. Access the remote disc over the network will be slower than if you had the disc directly inserted into the newer Mac.
If you want to use one of the unsupported discs you could buy an Apple USB SuperDrive. You could also use a USB SuperDrive to get better performance from the disc since it would be directly connected to the newer Mac.
Remote Disc is not enabled on Macs that have built-in CD/DVD drives. However, Chris Mountford discovered that the Remote Disc feature can be enabled on these Macs. If the built-in drive were to fail, you might want to enable the Remote Disc feature so you can use another Mac’s CD/DVD drive instead of repairing the failed drive.
[Update Nov 2023: This feature does not work on Macs running macOS 13 Ventura or higher.]