Upgrade or fresh install

[mattburley7]

For the people doing a clean install how are you doing it? I don't have a USB drive at hand, so I factory reset and formatted drive and as soon as I logged into Sonoma on first boot, immediately updated to Sequoia. Which took ages as well but that's the closest one could get without a USB drive I guess

erase all content and settings method

no need to erase the hard drive or usb

only takes a few minutes and good as new!

 

[Sptzz]

erase all content and settings method

no need to erase the hard drive or usb

only takes a few minutes and good as new!

Since I saw there was a Data partition I thought it wasn't a full clean install when I tried it. But yeah, if you do format the drive then it will pull from the recovery which is always Sonoma.

So I take it, if you don't format the drive and do that method it's essentially a clean install, absolutely no settings / preferences / leftover crap?

 

[q3anon]

For the people doing a clean install how are you doing it? I don't have a USB drive at hand, so I factory reset and formatted drive and as soon as I logged into Sonoma on first boot, immediately updated to Sequoia. Which took ages as well but that's the closest one could get without a USB drive I guess

Since I upgraded the Keychain Access broke, I rebooted my Intel MacBook Pro T2, selected CMD+R, Erase the disk, and reinstalled macOS Sequoia. It has some bugs, for example, if I change the Apple Account avatar doesn’t change my Avatar admin account and, without understanding why, the Avatar of my admin account changed the avatar without doing nothing! tvOS 18 also maintain the old Memoji when I use other on my iOS18 and macOS Sequoia!

 

[Sptzz]

Since I upgraded the Keychain Access broke, I rebooted my Intel MacBook Pro T2, selected CMD+R, Erase the disk, and reinstalled macOS Sequoia. It has some bugs, for example, if I change the Apple Account avatar doesn’t change my Avatar admin account and, without understanding why, the Avatar of my admin account changed the avatar without doing nothing! tvOS 18 also maintain the old Memoji when I use other on my iOS18 and macOS Sequoia!

Oh wow that's effed up! After erasing the disk and mac activating finished, I could only choose to install Sonoma, cause the recovery partition only contains Sonoma. Curious how it showed Sequoia for you

 

[Mike Boreham]

Since I saw there was a Data partition I thought it wasn't a full clean install when I tried it. But yeah, if you do format the drive then it will pull from the recovery which is always Sonoma.

So I take it, if you don't format the drive and do that method it's essentially a clean install, absolutely no settings / preferences / leftover crap?

Yes. It’s the recommended way of returning Mac to factory state before giving away or selling. It leaves only the immutable Signed Sealed System volume in place. Machine will start up in Setup Assistant for new owner as a factory new machine would.

 

[q3anon]

Oh wow that's effed up! After erasing the disk and mac activating finished, I could only choose to install Sonoma, cause the recovery partition only contains Sonoma. Curious how it showed Sequoia for you

Option-Command-R: When you press and hold these three keys at startup, Recovery might offer the latest macOS that is compatible with your Intel Mac.

With me, after upgrade to macOS Sequoia, CMD+R allows me to Reinstall macOS Sequoia.

 

[mattburley7]

Since I saw there was a Data partition I thought it wasn't a full clean install when I tried it. But yeah, if you do format the drive then it will pull from the recovery which is always Sonoma.

So I take it, if you don't format the drive and do that method it's essentially a clean install, absolutely no settings / preferences / leftover crap?

everything got erased, had to resetup everything as new

i had the iwork apps before because they came preinstalled with the mac

erase all content and settings they were now gone and i didnt reinstall them because i never used them

 

[Go To School By Bus]

You know you can always do a clean install at any time... Upgrade and see how it works out. If you're happy with it and have no issues, great! You just saved yourself from hours/days/weeks of getting everything back to the way you like it. If you're not happy with the upgrade, or something isn't working, then by all means do a clean install. (You actually don't need to do a clean install at this point with the way macOS does things now. Just go to 'Erase All Content and Settings' to start fresh.)

After “Erase All Content and Setting”, do I need to download app and deal with setting one by one, or restore from Time Machine ?? Thanks

 

[BigBlur]

After “Erase All Content and Setting”, do I need to download app and deal with setting one by one, or restore from Time Machine ?? Thanks

You can do either. Personally, I like to start with a clean slate and set it up as new. I don’t have that many apps, data, or settings I need to change, so it’s not really a big deal. If you have a lot, then you might want to restore from a backup or use Migration Assistant.

 

[Go To School By Bus]

You can do either. Personally, I like to start with a clean slate and set it up as new. I don’t have that many apps, data, or settings I need to change, so it’s not really a big deal. If you have a lot, then you might want to restore from a backup or use Migration Assistant.

I have many favorite pages on both Chrome and Safari. What should I do please?

 

[Mike Boreham]

I have many favorite pages on both Chrome and Safari. What should I do please?

If you are signed in to iCloud, with Safari enabled to use iCloud, Safari bookmarks will redownload when you sign in to iCloud after Erase All Content And Settings. I think similar can happen with Chrome and Google, though I have never done it.

Personally I always upgrade rather than EACAS. As @BigBlur says you can do EACAS any time later if not happy.

 

[Go To School By Bus]

If you are signed in to iCloud, with Safari enabled to use iCloud, Safari bookmarks will redownload when you sign in to iCloud after Erase All Content And Settings. I think similar can happen with Chrome and Google, though I have never done it.

Personally I always upgrade rather than EACAS. As @BigBlur says you can do EACAS any time later if not happy.

I now wanna buy a MacBook Pro. But my air is fully functional. I shouldn’t waste money