Once the download is complete, close the installer window by selecting the Quit Install macOS option in the menu bar or using the keyboard shortcut Command (⌘) + Q.Download macOS Catalina from the Mac App Store.How to Perform a Clean Install of macOS Catalina Look just below the OS X version number in the Overview tab – if the Mac model name is the same or a later model year than the one shown in the compatibility list above, your Mac is compatible with macOS Catalina. To check if your Mac is compatible, open the Apple () menu in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen and select About This Mac. The full list of compatible Mac models is as follows: MacOS Catalina is a major update that introduces a range of new features and changes including cross-platform app support for third-party apps, no more iTunes, iPad as a second screen functionality, Screen Time, and more.Įvery Mac that can run macOS Mojave will run macOS Catalina, with the exception of the mid-2010 and mid-2012 Mac Pro models. To follow the steps in this article, you'll need an empty 16GB or larger USB thumb drive (USB-C or USB-A, depending on your Mac) and an hour or two of downtime while the installation procedure completes.Īlso, be sure to perform a full backup of your Mac beforehand using Time Machine, so that you can restore your original system from the Recovery partition if something goes wrong. Performing a clean install can also remove annoying quirks and strange behaviors that your Mac may have inherited over time, and often helps to reclaim disk space caused by junk files left by third-party apps. Updated November 2020: Updated for macOS Big Sur.This article guides you through the process of performing a clean installation of macOS 10.15 Catalina using the bootable USB drive method, rather than upgrading your Mac using Apple's standard installation package, which retains existing user data and any user-installed apps.Ĭreating a bootable USB drive provides you with a convenient way to install a fresh copy of macOS Catalina on multiple Macs. What have you done previously? Do you usually do a clean install or standard installation? What are your plans for macOS Big Sur? If you're looking for a new Mac, check out our list of our favorite MacBook models of the year. That being said, if you mainly use your computer for browsing the internet, checking mail, or other non-work heavy activities, you might want to try a clean install. It really is nice to have a clean installation on your computer, but if you are like me, it isn't worth the hassle. Missing apps like 1Password and Dropbox immediately take me out of the game and drag my productivity to a crawl until I have what I need again. While I like that my MBP is clean (it feels like running a brand new computer), I don't like that I have to download every app that I need for work. I usually install macOS updates from scratch on my MacBook Pro and install from a backup on my iMac. If you are too busy to spend time re-downloading apps and retweaking your system settings, a standard installation makes more sense than starting from scratch. If your furniture was all rearranged, you'd have to turn on the lights to see where you are going. If you know where your bed is, your head will hit the pillow without you even having to think about it. It's like coming home late at night, in the dark. It is much faster to go from installation to being productive again when all of your apps and files are right where you left them. You will already be signed in to all of your apps and you won't have to redownload pictures from iCloud. When you download and install macOS Big Sur without starting from scratch, all of your apps, settings, files, and documents will be in the exact same spot that they were before. That's why restoring from a backup might be the best choice for you. Sound alerts, display options, keyboard settings – all of it will be reset to factory settings. Trying to figure out what happened to it could take a long time.Īll of the tweaks and adjustments you've made over the years to your computer will be gone. Similar to moving to a new house, there may have been a box in the garage that you never opened, but once you move, if you didn't take it with you, it's gone. Why a standard installation of macOS Big Sur is goodĪ clean install also means you lose everything. If you have the patience and some free time, a clean installation of macOS Big Sur can be somewhat cathartic in its own right.
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