How To Do A Clean Install Of Mac High Sierra

macOS Sierra is Apple'due south latest desktop operating system, which succeeds Os X El Capitan and adopts a new name to bring it in line with iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. The OS volition come pre-installed on all new Macs in one case current stock is depleted and is a free download for existing Mac owners.

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The main new feature in macOS Sierra is deep Siri integration, bringing Apple tree's personal assistant to the Mac for the first time. It also adds new features to Photos and Messages, and includes Continuity smarts like Universal Clipboard and an Machine Unlock option for Apple Picket owners.

This tutorial explains how to download macOS Sierra and perform a clean install, which offers several benefits over the automatic upgrade process included in the installation package.

Benefits of a Clean Install

A make clean install tin remove annoying quirks and strange behaviors that your Mac may have inherited over fourth dimension due to driver upgrades, wonky apps, and messy installation procedures. Performing a fresh install tin also repossess lost disk space caused by junk files left by third-political party apps, and can mostly brand your Mac feel a lot snappier, enabling you lot to relive that feeling of booting it upwardly for the first time.

SanDisk USB Flash Drive (U3) To complete the make clean install procedure described below, y'all'll need an 8GB or larger USB thumb drive and an hour or two to spare.

Y'all should also perform a full backup of your Mac beforehand using Fourth dimension Car. That way yous can restore your system from the Recovery partition if something goes incorrect. Alternatively, save a bootable mirror image of your arrangement to an external drive using a clone utility like SuperDuper! ($27.95) or Carbon Re-create Cloner ($39.99).

Compatibility Cheque

Before you do anything, cheque that your Mac is compatible with Apple'southward new operating system. macOS Sierra supports the post-obit:

iMac (Late 2009 or newer)
MacBook Air (2010 or newer)
MacBook (Tardily 2009 or newer)
Mac mini (2010 or newer)
MacBook Pro (2010 or newer)
Mac Pro (2010 or newer)

Another fashion of checking if your Mac is compatible is to open the Apple menu in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen and selecting Well-nigh This Mac. Look just below the OS X version number in the Overview tab – if the Mac model proper noun is the same or a afterwards model year than the i shown in the compatibility listing above, your Mac is compatible with Sierra.

Pre-Install Notes

If you want total control of what data gets transferred to the new OS, you lot tin sidestep the Migration Assistant and manually re-create any important files and folders on your existing organization to an external bulldoze instead. It's also worth taking a screenshot of your desktop, to serve as a record of how you like things prepare up.

Some users may find information technology useful to brand a note of the contents of their Applications folder for after reference. A screenshot may suffice (Command-Shift-4, so Infinite to capture the Finder window), but if not, the following steps describe a unproblematic manner to create a list of apps.

Finder & TextEdit

Open the Applications folder and press Control+A to select all apps in the Finder window, and then press Command+C.
At present open up TextEdit, create a new document, select Format -> Make Plain Text from the card bar, and press Command+V to paste a list of app names into the document.
If necessary, add together details of download locations for any non-Mac App Shop apps yous use, append any serial numbers you might demand, and relieve the text certificate to an external drive.

Be sure to let any cloud services you apply to complete synchronization before standing. It's also worth screen-grabbing or noting downwards any custom preferences, settings, Wi-Fi passwords, and app-specific profiles you employ.

Lastly, de-authorize any services on your Mac, including your iTunes business relationship (iTunes menu > Store > Deauthorize this Estimator), since these are normally limited to a set up number of systems.

Create a Bootable Installer

Download the macOS Sierra installation package from the Mac App Shop. Once information technology has downloaded, follow these steps to create a USB bootable installer.

Open up Disk Utility (found in the Applications/Utilities binder), select the thumb drive in the sidebar and click the "Erase" button.
Name the USB drive "Untitled" if it isn't already, choose the Format "Bone X Extended (Journaled)", and click "Erase". One time your thumb drive is formatted and the macOS installation bundle has finished downloading, open up Final (constitute in Applications/Utilities).
Now, ensure the USB drive is the only disk named "Untitled" continued to your Mac, and and so paste the post-obit control into the Last window, and printing Enter: sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --book /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app --nointeraction
You should exist prompted for your administrator password. Enter information technology, and the command volition create a bootable Sierra installer on the USB drive. The process volition have a few minutes to complete, so get out it running.

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Restart and Install

In one case the USB installer has been created, restart your Mac and agree down the Option key as shortly as you hear the reboot tone. So follow these steps:

Employ the mouse pointer or the arrow keys on your keyboard to select the disk called "Install macOS Sierra" in the drive list that appears on the screen.
One time the USB drive has booted, select "Disk Utility" from the Utilities window, choose your Mac'southward startup drive from the listing, and click "Erase".
When your Mac's startup deejay is formatted, return to the Utilities window and select "Install macOS", choose your freshly erased startup drive when asked where to install the OS, and follow the onscreen prompts to consummate the installation.

Post-Install Steps

Once the clean installation of macOS Sierra is up and running on your Mac, you can either restore your data from a Time Machine fill-in using Migration Assistant (plant in Applications/Utilities), or begin restoring your apps, files, and settings manually to get your Mac fix just the way you similar it.

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