FonePaw - Solution - Upgrade - Clean Install Mac OS
Jun 19, 2018 Use the Storage Tools in macOS High Sierra. The latest version of macOS Sierra has a new tool to help you clean the junk out of your Mac — just go to the menu and choose “About This Mac” and then flip over to the Storage tab. Once you are there, you can go through the new settings and enable the ones that make sense to you. MacOS Sierra is built with iCloud in mind. It uses two complementary functions to keep your Mac clean: iCloud syncing coupled with automatic deletion of local copies. The first thing you do is turn.
Other than downloading and installing macOS from App Store, you can also upgrade your Mac to macOS High Sierra with a clean install. A clean install of Mac OS will restore your Mac to factory settings and reinstall new Mac OS on the computer, which is right for you if you want to give your Mac/iMac/MacBook a fresh restart.
This tutorial will explain to you how to clean install macOS High Sierra step by step. You can also apply these steps to clean install macOS Sierra, OS X El Capitan, or the older OS X version on your Mac.
Part 1: Clean Install Mac OS vs Upgrade Mac OS
Usually we install a new version of Mac OS by upgrading to the new version. For example, as macOS High Sierra is released, we download the new operating system from App Store and run the installer to get it on our Mac. By upgrading to macOS Sierra from Sierra, El Capitan, etc., current data on the Mac are preserved and you can use your apps, files, photos and other data right away once the upgrade is completed.
Clean install of Mac OS, on the other hand, will delete all current data on Mac's drive and install on the drive a with a fresh copy of macOS High Sierra. Comparing to upgrading to macOS High Sierra, a clean install is more likely to give your Mac a better performance and it is often used to fix Mac system problems, such as speeding up a slow Mac.
Tip: If you need to recover deleted photos, files, videos, audio from Mac after clean installation, you can use FonePaw Data Recovery.
Part 2: Clean Install Mac OS from USB on Startup Drive
There are two types of clean install of macOS: installing Mac OS on the startup drive and installing the OS on non-startup drive. To perform a clean install on the startup drive, you need to make a bootable USB install drive of macOS, such as macOS High Sierra. Fresh install on the non-startup, on the other hand, requires you to have a second drive on the Mac.
The methods to perform these two types of clean install are different. We will cover the first one - how to clean install macOS High Sierra on Startup drive first.
Step 1: Backup your Mac
To clean install a Mac OS, you have to first erase everything on the drive. Therefore, it is important for you to back up files, apps and other needed data on your Mac before the install of the new OS. You can make a backup of your Mac to iCloud drive or you have to make a Time Machine backup.
Step 2: Make a bootable flash installer of macOS
Next, you need to create a bootable macOS High Sierra USB drive.
Download macOS High Sierra installer from Mac App Store. If the installer automatically begins to install High Sierra once the download completes, quit the installer.
Get a 16GB or larger USB drive(to make a bootable flash installer of macOS Sierra or OS X El Capitan, an 8GB flash drive is enough.)
Plug the USB drive into Mac and format the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume with a GUID Partition Table: click Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility > the USB drive > Erase.
Open the Terminal app and enter the following command: sudo /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/UNTITLED && say Boot Installer Complete.If your USB drive has a name, replace “UNTITLED” with your USB drive name.
Hit Enter key and enter the password of your Mac. Wait for the process to complete and you will have a bootable USB install drive for High Sierra.
Step 3: Erase the startup drive
Firstly, you need to boot up your Mac from the USB flash drive: restart your Mac while holding down the option button, when all of the bootable drives are displayed, select the macOS Sierra installer on the USB drive.
Once the Mac starts up, you will see the following macOS Utilities window.
Click Disk Utility, select your startup drive (usually named as Macintosh HD) and choose Erase. This will delete all contents of your startup, including the current version of the OS, photos, videos, music and other files.
Step 4: Clean install macOS High Sierra
Once the startup drive has been formatted, close Disk Utility and go back to the macOS Utilities window. This time, select Install macOS > Continue. Then choose the startup drive to install the macOS High Sierra.
Let the installation process to complete and your Mac will reboot.
Part 3: Clean Install macOS High Sierra Without USB
If you have an extra drive or volume on your Mac/MacBook/iMac and you would like to keep the older version of Mac OS on your startup drive, it is a good idea to install macOS High Sierra on the non-startup drive to try out the new features. Comparing to install macOS on the startup drive, clean install on the non-startup drive is much simpler because you run the installer directly from your Mac's startup drive with no need to make a bootable USB drive of the installer.
Step 1: Backup your Mac
Whether to fresh install Mac OS on startup or non-startup drive, it is critical to creating a whole backup of your Mac before a major OS install.
Step 2: Download macOS High Sierra installer
Then download macOS High Sierra installer from Mac App Store. The installer will be downloaded to /Applications folder and do not run the installer now.
Step 3: Erase the non-startup drive
If your Mac's non-starup drive contains other Mac operating systems, you need to format the drive with Disk Utility.
Go to Application > Utility > Disk Utility. Select the non-startup volume and choose Erase. After erasing the volume, all data on the volume will be deleted.
Note: If the non-startup drive doesn't have any Mac OS or only contains personal data, you may skip this step.
Step 4 Clean install macOS
Run the macOS High Sierra installer. When seeing this window, choose Show All Disk and select your Mac's non-startup disk to install the macOS. The installer will show the estimated time of completion for the installation process. Wait till the install completes.
Do you have any question with a clean install of macOS High Sierra? Let us know in the comments below.
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macOS Sierra is a fantastic update arriving from Apple to make us love our Macs even more. It has plenty of new features, and also has the same easy clean install and upgrade flow as did the previous OS.
LEARN MORE: How to Clean Install the macOS High Sierra?
Note, that getting an upgrade is the easiest way of installing the new macOS. It saves all your personal files, apps and user data, while a so-called clean install of Sierra will erase all data on the startup drive and replace it with a clean copy of OS. But, if you like an idea of giving your Mac a fresh start with a new macOS and nothing else, a clean install is the right option for you.
Also, in case you’ve noticed that with time your Mac is running slower, it has unusual startup or shutdown issues and crashes, a clean install may be a good way to get back the speed and fix the problem.
First of all, make sure that your Mac is able to run MacOS Sierra.
Then, you should prepare your Mac for the installation:
Download macOS Sierra Installer from the Mac App Store. Once the download completes, it will automatically launch. Quit macOS Sierra Installer app without performing the installation.
Take a 16GB or larger USB flash drive to create a bootable Sierra installer. This flash drive is only needed for a clean install on your Mac’s startup drive. But if you plan to clean install on a non-startup drive (you have and extra HDD or SSD on your Mac), you don't need the USB.
Backup your Mac to ensure your personal data is intact.
Clean Install macOS Sierra on Your Mac’s Startup Drive
If you're going to perform a clean install on the startup drive, you need to backup your data, create a bootable copy of the installer, and, finally, boot from the bootable installer. So, let us begin.
Step 1: Clean up your Mac
To make sure Sierra has no troubles installing and works fine after, you need to get rid of system junk on your Mac first. You could clean it up manually, but using a cleaning app like CleanMyMac X will save you hours on that. Junk removal with CleanMyMac takes only a few minutes. Download CleanMyMac for free, launch it, click Scan, and then Clean. Now you’ve got plenty of free space and your Mac is free from system trash.
Step 2: Back up your data
Note: A clean install of macOS Sierra on the startup drive completely erases all data on that drive: all your files and documents, including music, movies, pictures, and even apps.
So, If you skip this step, you wouldn’t be able to recover your data if something goes wrong.
To backup your Mac:
Open Time Machine.
Click Select Disk.
Choose where you wish to save your files (to the external drive or to the cloud storage).
Click On to turn Time Machine on.
Click on the “arrow clock” icon and select Back Up Now in the menu bar at the top of the screen.
Step 3: Clean Install macOS Sierra on your startup disk
1. Create a bootable flash drive with macOS Sierra.
First, make sure your USB flash drive is formatted and named as “Untitled”.
To format a USB drive launch Disk Utility (Finder -> /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility).
Select your USB drive under External.
Click the Erase tab at the top of the Disk Utility window. Select Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the format list. Then, click the Erase button. When the process is complete, click Done, and close the Disk Utility window.
If your drive is named something else, you need to rename it (Open Finder -> right click on the USB drive and choose Rename).
Enter the following text into Terminal: sudo /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app --nointeraction
Hit the Enter key.
Terminal will ask you for an admin password (the one you use to log in). It won’t display characters when you type, so just do it. Hit Return. You’ll see that Terminal erases your drive. Then, Terminal will copy the installer file to your disk. This will take a few minutes. When the process is complete, the Terminal window will report 'Done.' You can quit Terminal and your bootable macOS Sierra installer USB drive is ready for use.
Also, you can follow the instructions from an Apple article on how to create bootable installer.
2. Plug in the bootable macOS Sierra installer USB drive to your Mac. 3. Restart your Mac while holding the Option key or Cmd+R. Make sure to keep it pressed! 4. When Mac restarts, you’ll see the macOS Startup Manager with a list of bootable devices that your Mac can start up from. 5. Use the arrow keys to choose your USB drive with macOS Sierra installer. Press Enter. 6. Select Disk Utility. 7. In the window, at the top of the left bar, select your Mac’s Main Drive (it looks like a MacintoshHD). 8. Select the Erase tab located next to the First Aid button at the top. 9. Near the center of the window, select the Format drop-down list and select Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) type. 10. Click Erase (Note: this will erase all your data from your main drive!) and give the drive some time to format. 11. When it’s done, close Disk Utility and select “Install macOS” from the menu. 12. Select your main drive and install the new macOS Sierra 10.12.
Follow these Sierra install instructions and enjoy your newly clean-installed macOS Sierra.
Clean Install on a Non-Startup Drive
This type of clean install doesn't require you to make a bootable copy of the macOS installer, since you can run the installer directly from your Mac’s startup drive. But you need to have another hard drive or volume that you can use for installing macOS.
So, this is the easiest way to clean install macOS 10.12. Simply use an extra drive or volume (it doesn’t have to necessarily be empty already, you just need to be fine with it being erased) and install Sierra there.
Step 1: Erase your non-startup drive
If your non-startup drive has any other Mac OS, erase it before installing Sierra. If the target drive only has personal data on it, or is already empty, you can skip the erase process.
To erase the non-startup drive, use a Mac's Drive Using Disk Utility (OS X El Capitan or later)
After the non-startup drive is erased, you can start the install process.
Step 2: Download the macOS Sierra Installer from the Mac App Store
When the macOS download completes, it will automatically launch the installer. Quit the macOS Sierra Installer app without performing the installation. You'll find the macOS Sierra Installer in the /Applications folder.
Step 3: Start the Installation of macOS Sierra on the Non-startup drive
Launch the Installer from /Applications folder.
Click Continue.
Check the non-startup drive that you can install Sierra on (usually, the installer will display the default target for the installation of macOS Sierra as the startup drive (Macintosh HD). So, you should to click the Show All Disks button, and the installer will display a list of all attached volumes).
Click the Install button.
The macOS Sierra installer will display a progress bar. You'll be guided through the macOS Sierra setup process to create a user account, set up date and time, and other introductory stuff.