The MAC Mini is not only 'The most affordable and most energy-efficient Mac ever', it is also the smallest, the sleekest and by far and away the most versatile computer available. By versatile, we mean for modding, making it perfect for any computer modders creative vision.
In this post we have a selection of unbelievably creative MAC mini mods and two mods that simply want to be a MAC Mini.

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Millenium Falcon Mac Mini

How about having your very own Millenium Falcon as a Media Center computer? Pretty cool, right? You could picture it sitting, with its pride of place, on top of your widescreen television.
Thats exactly what Derrick Hixson did. He bought the Millenium Falcon toy for $20 from a local Disney store and soon realised that it could house a MAC Mini with ease, with relative ease anyway.
Click here to read about how he created this awesome computer here:

Mac Mini Cube

The inspiration for this mod came from the Fifth Avenue Apple Store and the black Macbook. The creator wanted to recreate the G4 Cube, as if Apple had never discontinued it, and make it into a true media center. He did not want to simply put the 'guts' of an Intel Mac Mini inside and 'dress it up', but to refresh the Cube and create something that could stand out.

Steampunk Mac Mini Mod, Monitor, & Keyboard

This is perhaps the most impressive MAC Mini mod you will ever see, it is amazing. Created by David Veloz for his soon to be wife in time for their wedding. The creator describes “steampunk” as the intersection of technology and romance, what a beautiful notion.

1942 Philco Radio Mac mini mod

What do you do when you have an old 1942 Philco radio sitting about doing nothing? Well, you gut it, add a Mac Mini and 17' Sony monitor with touchscreen, and turn it into a classy networked digital media cente. Of course you do!

Haro Case

Fans of Haro from the Gundam series will definitely be thrilled to see the Haro PC case being made available. While it is not exactly a bona fide PC case since it does not come with all the necessary ports but instead stores a really small form factor computer, such as the Mac Mini.
When powered, the Haro case provides animated expressions that can be controlled via the remote. Moving parts include its ears, while its LED eyeballs can light up for added effect. Cool.

Mac Mini Lego

Those that read this blog regularly will know how much I love Lego, so you can imagine how much I would love on of these. The problem is I could not find any details about how this marvellous mod was built nor who the creator was. If anyone can help I would really appreciate it.

Mac Mini Laptop

This is certainly not the most beautiful laptop in the world, but it is original and creative. Peter Green, took his Mac Mini and modded it out with a mini keyboard, track pad, battery (3 hour life), and an 8inch fold away screen.

Mac Mini Swallowed by old G4 Cube

Like the abandoned shell of a hermit crab, Mac enthusiast Rich Willis removed the innards of the old G4 cube and filled its guts with his Mac Mini as well as some add-ons. He even went the extra mile to add a virtual laser keyboard so the whole thing is nicely self-contained.

Mac Mini into a classic Floppy Drive

MacModder Option8 has taken a MAC Mini and stuffed it inside a classic Apple external Floppy Drive. You tend to forget how big these old drives were and how little they actually did, power-wise. Now with the added inclusion of a MAC Mini the power of this drive has reached levels it never ever could imagine. i am loving the retro look.

Mac Box

The creator of this mod wanted to make his Mac Mini portable without having to tear it apart. So, he built an enclosure, bought a cheap car dvd monitor off ebay and threw this portable box together. All you have to do is simply slide the Mac Mini into the box and plug it in and you have an iMac style mini. There must be a market for these things, would you not buy one?

Mac Mini Mods – Petrol Can

If you are looking for a little bit of originality with you MAC Mini modding, you will love this mod. It is a seamless bright red petrol can and your MAC mini will slot into the back with ease. I think this looks great, its a wonder they don't market these.

2005 Mazda 3 – MacVroom

Matt Burriola installed a Mac mini into his 2005 Mazda 3 sedan and documented the entire installation process. His goal for his project was to create a system with better than stock sound and capability, while maintaining a clean, stock appearance.
You can view the step-by-step process here: Mac Mini Carputer Install.

U. of Oklahoma's Mac Mini Robot

The University of Oklahoma built this mobile robot, powered by a MAC Mini, to prototype a visually and aurally tele-operated robot before designing their own from scratch. It's based on the Pioneer 3-AT robotics platform and is controlled via a USB-to-serial connection, with visual feedback provided via iSight. I want one of these.

Sparky the Robot

Sparky, made by San Francisco artist Marque Cornblatt, is a robot powered by a MAC Mini, built in with Skype, and a wide array of wonderful gadgets.

Mini iMac Mod Wants to Be a Real Mac

Not a MAC Mini mod, more of a mini MAC-a-like creation this one. German modder Phyro-Mane took an old laptop and hacked it together to resemble a scaled down iMac, icalling it the iMacmini. But strangely, it runs Windows XP skinned to look like OS X. The mod features a 14-inch screen, AMD Athlon XP 1700+ processor, 20 GB HDD and 512 MB RAM. Now, even PC users can have the sleek and stylish MAC look.

The DIY Mac Pro Mini

An intrepid modder was given a sad, water-damaged MacBook and turned it into his own little Mac Pro Mini with a little know-how and a $40 Mac Pro case knockoff. His MacBook's motherboard worked, but LCD, HDD, battery, memory, keyboard, and DVD drive were all busted. After replacing the HDD and memory, he set out to stuff his cheap-o case with the corpse of his MacBook.

Around these parts, seeing a classic laptop or desktop computer get revived with the Raspberry Pi is fairly common. While we’re not ones to turn down a well-executed Pi infusion, we know they can be controversial at times. There’s an impression that such projects are low-effort, and that the combination of old and new tech gains little in the way of usability due to the usability quirks of the Pi itself.

Mac Mini Hackintosh 2019

But we think even the most critical in the audience will agree that this build by [Tylinol], which sees the internals of a circa 1993 PowerBook 165c get replaced with that of a 2014 Mac Mini, is something else entirely. For one thing, there’s no question that packing a modern (relatively) desktop computer motherboard into a laptop’s body takes a lot more planning and effort than hot gluing the comparatively tiny Pi into the same space. Plus as an added bonus, anyone who counts themselves among the Cult of Mac will be happy to see the vintage machine retain its Cupertino pedigree.

So how do you get a Mac Mini inside of a PowerBook? Very carefully. As explained by [Tylinol], the inside of the PowerBook’s case was coated in graphite and conductive enough to be a problem. So after the original hardware was removed, a layer of tape was added to insulate it; though we imagine a suitably thick spray-on coating could be used as well if you don’t have that kind of patience.

Once the case was gutted and insulated, [Tylinol] added new stand-offs to mount the Mac Mini motherboard and hard drive. For anyone wondering, the 2014 model was used because the shape of the board almost perfectly fits around the trackball PCB. A board from a newer Mac could be used, but it would likely mean using an external mouse.

Which would have been a problem for [Tylinol], because one of the main goals of this build was to get the original input working. That meant adapting the Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) devices to USB, which turns out to be something of a Dark Art. But with the help of some contemporary information about the long-forgotten protocol and a Teensy 3.5, both devices are now picked up as standard USB HID.

Mac Mini Hacks And Mods

But of course, that’s just scratching the surface. [Tylinol] also had to figure out how to swap the original display out for a modern panel, and then get the whole thing running on internal battery power. Even if you’re not particularly interested in retro Apple hardware, this is really a phenomenal build that deserves a thorough read-through.

Mac Mini Hackintosh Build

For those of you who don’t mind getting a Pi in a PowerBook, we recently saw a recreation of Lord Nikon’s laptop from Hackers that went that route.