This commodity guides y'all through the process of performing a clean installation of macOS 10.fifteen Catalina using the bootable USB bulldoze method, rather than upgrading your Mac using Apple tree's standard installation package, which retains existing user data and whatsoever user-installed apps.

macs macos catalina
Creating a bootable USB drive provides you lot with a convenient fashion to install a fresh copy of macOS Catalina on multiple Macs. Performing a make clean install can also remove annoying quirks and strange behaviors that your Mac may take inherited over fourth dimension, and often helps to reclaim disk space acquired by junk files left by tertiary-political party apps.

To follow the steps in this article, you lot'll need an empty 16GB or larger USB pollex drive (USB-C or USB-A, depending on your Mac) and an hour or two of reanimation while the installation procedure completes.

Also, be sure to perform a full backup of your Mac beforehand using Time Machine, and then that you tin restore your original organization from the Recovery partition if something goes incorrect.

Compatibility Bank check

macOS Catalina is a major update that introduces a range of new features and changes including cross-platform app support for third-party apps, no more iTunes, iPad as a second screen functionality, Screen Time, and more.

Every Mac that can run macOS Mojave will run macOS Catalina, with the exception of the mid-2010 and mid-2012 Mac Pro models. The full list of compatible Mac models is equally follows:

  • MacBook (Early 2022 or newer)
  • MacBook Air (Mid 2022 or newer)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid 2022 or newer)
  • Mac mini (Late 2022 or newer)
  • iMac (Late 2022 or newer)
  • ‌iMac‌ Pro (2017)
  • ‌Mac Pro‌ (Belatedly 2022)

To check if your Mac is compatible, open up the Apple () menu in the upper left corner of your Mac's screen and select About This Mac. Look just below the Bone 10 version number in the Overview tab – if the Mac model name is the same or a later model twelvemonth than the ane shown in the compatibility listing above, your Mac is compatible with macOS Catalina.

How to Perform a Make clean Install of macOS Catalina

  1. Download macOS Catalina from the Mac App Shop [Direct Link].
    Mac App Store
  2. Once the download is complete, close the installer window by selecting the Quit Install macOS option in the menu bar or using the keyboard shortcut Command (⌘) + Q.
  3. Launch the Terminal app (found in Applications/Utilities/Last).
  4. At the Terminal command prompt, blazon sudo followed by a space.
    mojave clean install 2
  5. Adjacent, open a Finder window, navigate to your Applications folder, right-click (or Ctrl-click) on the macOS 10.15 installer, and select Show Parcel Contents from the contextual dropdown menu.
  6. Navigate to Contents -> Resources within the installer parcel.
  7. Drag the createinstallmedia file into the Terminal window.
    mojave clean install 4
  8. Still in the Last window, type /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/XXXXX but supplant XXXXX with the proper noun of the USB drive you intend to use as a bootable installer.
  9. In one case you've replaced XXXXX in the last stride with the name of the USB drive, printing the Enter fundamental on your keyboard to run the completed Terminal command.
  10. Enter your administrator countersign when prompted.
  11. Blazon Y and press Enter when prompted, and the control volition create your bootable Catalina installer on the USB drive. This will take a few minutes to complete, so leave it running until you see the message "Install media at present available." Note that if you're asked whether yous desire to install Xcode during the process, you can safely click Not Now and the process volition complete successfully regardless.

Restart and Install

You can install Catalina on your Mac equally shortly as the USB installer has been created. To exercise then, restart your Mac and hold down the Selection (⌥) key as soon as you hear the reboot tone. Then follow these steps:

  1. Utilise the mouse pointer or the arrow keys on your keyboard to select the disk called Install macOS Catalina in the drive listing that appears on the screen.
  2. In one case the USB bulldoze has booted, select Disk Utility from the Utilities window, choose your Mac'southward startup drive from the list, and click Erase.
  3. When your Mac'south startup disk is formatted, render 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 complete the installation.

To install Catalina on another Mac, first make sure it'south powered off, then simply plug in the USB installer you lot created and turn the Mac on. When you hear the boot tone, hold down the Option (⌥) central and follow the iii steps above.

(Thank you to Angus for the new Terminal command!)

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