MacOS X operating system is Apple's own development and is installed on all computers of its production. Thanks to tight integration and hardware, it is highly stable and efficient. Once a year a new version of this OS is released, and during its service life updates are regularly released aimed at correcting detected errors. How to reinstall Mac OS X on your computer, and what installation options are available, we will describe in this article.
Distribution Terms
Mac OS X is a proprietary operating system, the first version of which was released in 2001. Over the next twelve years, it was distributed on a paid basis, and all its versions bore "cat" names. The first in this series was OS 10.0 Cheetah, the last 10.8 Mountain Lion.
Starting with version 10.9, MacOS is distributed free of charge, and code names began to be assigned in honor of geographical objects located in the state of California. The first operating system in this series was released in 2013 and named Mavericks, in honor of the popular California beach.
In 2016, Apple changed one of the clauses in the user license agreement. MacOS has since been considered not acquired, but leased from the company for the time it is used. However, this change is more relevant for those users who use the so-called Hackintosh, the installation of MacOS on a third-party computer.
Update from the App Store
The easiest way to install the new version is to download it from the App Store. Let's see what in this case will need to be done and how. You can reinstall Mac OS X this way on any Apple computer whose hardware will support the latest version of the operating system.
To download, you need a workable OS and Internet access. On the homepage of the App Store, in the "Quick Links" section, the very first version you’ll find is the current version of Mac OS available for your computer. Going to the operating system page, select the “Download” option, and in the “Programs” folder you will see its image with the name “Install Mac OS”, the current build number and an indicator showing the progress of downloading it from the company's servers.
After receiving the image on the computer, it remains only to run it, like a regular program. In the future, without your participation, several reboots will take place, and you can use the latest Apple operating system.
Installation from the recovery partition
Over time, the requirements for hardware increase, and even if your laptop officially supports the new version, it can work more efficiently on the old one. Let's look at how to reinstall Mac OS on a MacBook without changing the OS to a newer one. In this case, we will also need a connection to the World Wide Web.
At boot time, you must use the keyboard shortcut Command + R. With it, you get into the recovery menu and choose how to reinstall Mac OS. You will be available to upgrade to the latest supported version or to the latest used. Choosing the second option, you actually install back the OS on which your laptop showed great performance.
When using the recovery function, there is also the opportunity to return the version of the operating system with which you purchased the computer. If you decide to perform such an operation, you will need to use a more complex key combination at the initial stage of the download. While holding down Shift + Command + Option + R and answering the question about how to reinstall Mac OS, select the installation option for the system that came with it.
Installation from a flash drive
After the release of new versions of the Apple OS, to activate all the available features, you may need a “clean” installation. In this case, you need to know how to reinstall Mac OS from scratch using a bootable USB flash drive. This option is not much more complicated than the previous ones, and the only thing you need is an external drive of at least 8 GB in size and with the name Untitled. You can rename it using the Disk Utility program from the OS.
To get started, you need to download the boot image to your computer as described above. Once it is received, you can begin to create your own bootable flash drive. We will use only the standard tools of the operating system itself and create the installation disk using the “Terminal” program. Copy the following command into its window:
sudo / Applications / Install \ macOS \ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume / Volumes / Untitled --applicationpath / Applications / Install \ macOS \ Sierra.app --nointeraction
To execute it, you need an administrator account or knowledge of the administrative password. If before that you exactly followed our recommendations, then after no more than half an hour you will have in your hands an installation disc with the latest version of OS X Sierra.
Finally
In this article, you learned how to reinstall Mac OS on your computer, and what are the options for completing this task. As you can see, the process of reinstalling the "apple" operating system is quite simple and most of the time it will take you to download its image. Having coped with this task, you can consider yourself a real poppy grower.