How to do a clean install on macOS with Internet Recovery
Currently, the major OS release of macOS is called Big Sur. Every time a major release is published, there are many consumers who prefer to start out with a clean slate on their Mac instead of upgrading to the latest with their current OS intact. There can be many reasons to perform a clean install when a new major Mac OS upgrade is released. Maybe you’ve been experimenting a bit and have installed a lot of software that you don’t use anymore. Maybe there’s some lingering system issue that you have not been able to fix. It’s also possible that your Mac has started to feel sluggish and doing a clean install certainly will help you out in that department. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, since doing a clean install will give you a clean slate on your Mac to start with.
This article will cover the aspect of performing a clean install on your Mac with Internet Recovery. The benefit of this approach is that you don’t need to download macOS Big Sur or any other version before hand and then create a bootable USB drive. This reduces the complexity, but it does mean that the first macOS version will be put on your system that your Mac was delivered with. You might have to upgrade further after you’ve done a clean install.
Create a backup
Performing a clean install will wipe out all files, documents and appications that are installed on your Mac. It is of utmost importance to make a backup of your files and documents before getting started this whole process.
You can make a back-up of your files by placing them in an external hard drive or by using an online cloud storage service like Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive.
Restart Mac to internet recovery
After having made a backup of your files, restart your Mac and immediately after hearing the start-up chime, press the following two keys:
CMD⌘+R
As soon as you see the globe icon on your screen, you have successfully entnered the Internet Recovery process. Please sit back and wait for this initialization process tot finish and then head on to the next step!
Wipe the drive
You will be presented with the macOS Utilities screen.
- Click Disk Utility. A different screen will open up, showing you the drives that are available on your Mac.
- Select the drive on the left that contains your macOS installation. This will be named Macintosh HD in most instances.
- Mount the drive, if necessary
- On the top of the window, click the erase button. You will be presented with a dialog to rename your drive if you want to and select the hard drive format. APFS is the recommended option. Confirm by pressing Erase
Re-install Mac OS
After having erased you hard drive, close the Disk Utility window and go back to the macOS Utilities window. You’re now ready to re-install Mac OS on your erased drive. Select Reinstall macOS in the Disk Utility window. You will be presented with a screen to select the Macintosh HD drive that you just erased. Select this and continue on with the Internet Recovery process. Your Mac will start re-installing macOS on your system. This might take a while depending your internet bandwidth.
Upgrade further to the latest version (if necessary)
Depending on the type of Mac that you’ve bought, Internet Recovery will set back the macOS version that your Mac was delivered with. This can be a version prior to the release of Big Sur. If this is the case, you will have to upgrade to the latest major release by going to your System Preferences and then selecting Software Update. Follow the prompts that macOS shows you when it checks for new versions for your Mac.
