How to perform a clean install on an old MBP for Catalina?

[Nelle303]

Hello,

For years, I have thought to wipe my disk and put a fresh MacOS on my Late 2013 Macbook Pro (8GB, 256GB). But I have always put this particular task off, because I don't know how to do it properly or safely.

Ive gotten 6 years out of this baby and its served me very well. But over the years, Im sure that its gotten really cluttered in the background and a fresh install would do it good. Im running Mojave and I have always done just updates of one Mac OS to the next. Currently the System takes up 80GB on my drive. Recently, my macbook has started to overheat, freeze when a few applications are open and generally getting slower, RAM is taking a hit operating 6-7GB out of 8GB.

I did a big manual clean - cleaned out caches, deleted big files and unused applications, emptied non-essential files to an external drive, reduced startup applications and even re-indexed Spotlight. But I think the time has come, where it still needs a fresh start overall. The problem is I am way over my head here and I am scared I will mess it up and lose the last 6 years of my life! Im a female here, Im trying my best.

So I would like to ask the community for guidance on how to perform a clean install for Cataline on a late 2013 Macbook Pro.

Am I correct in my assumption that I would free up a lot of the 80GB of drive space if I do a clean MacOS install ?
What is the best and easiest way to back up the contents in my computer ?
I have a Time Capsule from 2014 but I still don't know how to set it up, if Im honest (have gotten a better wifi router from the ISP provider so the Capsule just sits around). I have some experience with creating a disk image through Disk Utility and using Safe Mode.
How do I perform a wipe of the computer after creating a back up ?
Do I need to reformat anything ?
How to restore backed up content to my computer afterwards ?
What else do I need to check for and make sure of?

Thank you for all your help guys.

PS: could someone also help with setting the Brave browser to use --process-per-site -- instead of a separate process for every tab ? I found instructions on ho wto do this on Windows, but not on Mac..

 

[mikzn]

I am not a fan of clean installs - if you have a lot of registered software then installing, udating and entering codes and registration info can be time consuming - I did a clean install of Catalina and regretted it for weeks - it was a pain getting everything back to where is was on Mojave - That's just my 2 cents

I upgraded my SSD on my mid 2012 MBP to 512g before installing Catalina - it runs like a champ with Catalina and the extra Drive space helps a lot ?

Personally I don't think you will free up much space (on a 256gb SSD) by doing a clean install ( others will probably disagree) - but after you back up an iPhone (and perhaps an iPad as well?) you may lose that extra space - these "back ups" are buried in you user library (hidden directory) - also apps like Outlook and others may also store data in the user library - so my experience is that within a few weeks of use it will quickly arrive at the same level of used space.

If I was upgrading my 2012 now I would probably choose a 1TB SSD - you can never have too much Drive storage - worth the $$ IMHO

Definitely a good idea to make a clone (Bootable Back Up) of the Macbook before you begin - Carbon Copy Cloner - lots of good info on thier web site

Am quite sure your late 2013 MBP will run faster with more SSD space - but the drive for that model is a special version of SSD drive - see info here - Upgrade Obstacles & Compatible SSD Details

If you are not comfortable taking your computer apart and installing a drive - it might be worth having a local computer repair company install a new drive for you?

I have a Time Capsule from 2014 but I still don't know how to set it up

This is fairly easy to do and you may need to update it - there is an app in the <Applications< Utilities folder called
"Airport Utility" to help configure the Time Capsule

 

[Boyd01]

I just installed Catalina on my 2012 quad-core Mac Mini Server's original Apple internal 256gb SSD. Now, my setup might be a little unusual, because I still had Mountain Lion on that drive, along with over $5000 of legacy software that I rarely use, but still need sometimes. For the past two years, I have been booting this machine into Sierra on a 1TB external SSD and not using the internal SSD.

I made a bootable clone of the internal SSD, so I can still use Mountain Lion in the future if needed. Then I booted the machine into Sierra from the external SSD as usual and downloaded Catalina from App Store. When it was ready to install, I chose the internal 256gb SSD. But here was my mistake.... I should have erased the internal SSD after I cloned it. But I expected Catalina to give me the option to do a clean install/erase during installation. I did not see any such option however, it just churned away, converted the SSD to APFS and installed Catalina over Mountain Lion while moving all the incompatible stuff to a special folder.

Anyway, have not really used it yet for anything serious, but it seems to be OK. I manually deleted all the old files from Mountain Lion. To get back to the OP's question.... it now shows 194gb free on a 250gb SSD. So it should fit on your 80gb disk, but will be a pretty tight squeeze. I suppose it's possible that there would be a little more free space if I had wiped the internal disk before doing the install.