FonePaw - Solution - Upgrade - Clean Install Mac OS
What Is Mac Cleaner and How It Works. A Mac cleaner is an app designed to speed up your Mac computer, making it as fast as brand new. To understand how Mac cleaners work, you need to understand why Macs become slower with age: Perhaps the most common cause of Mac slowdowns is the lack of free storage space. Oct 07, 2019 After starting up from macOS Recovery, choose Reinstall macOS (or Reinstall OS X) from the Utilities window. Then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions to choose your disk and begin installation. If the installer asks to unlock your disk, enter the password you use to log in to your Mac. In general, MacBooster is a nice app that aims to clean and speed up a Mac machine. Its features are a combination of what CleanMyMac and Gemini offer, and even go beyond. However, choosing the best Mac cleaner software is not simply a game of comparing the number of features.
Other than downloading and installing macOS from App Store, you can also upgrade your Mac to macOS High Sierra with a clean install. A clean install of Mac OS will restore your Mac to factory settings and reinstall new Mac OS on the computer, which is right for you if you want to give your Mac/iMac/MacBook a fresh restart.
This tutorial will explain to you how to clean install macOS High Sierra step by step. You can also apply these steps to clean install macOS Sierra, OS X El Capitan, or the older OS X version on your Mac.
Part 1: Clean Install Mac OS vs Upgrade Mac OS
Usually we install a new version of Mac OS by upgrading to the new version. For example, as macOS High Sierra is released, we download the new operating system from App Store and run the installer to get it on our Mac. By upgrading to macOS Sierra from Sierra, El Capitan, etc., current data on the Mac are preserved and you can use your apps, files, photos and other data right away once the upgrade is completed.
Clean install of Mac OS, on the other hand, will delete all current data on Mac's drive and install on the drive a with a fresh copy of macOS High Sierra. Comparing to upgrading to macOS High Sierra, a clean install is more likely to give your Mac a better performance and it is often used to fix Mac system problems, such as speeding up a slow Mac.
Tip: If you need to recover deleted photos, files, videos, audio from Mac after clean installation, you can use FonePaw Data Recovery.
Part 2: Clean Install Mac OS from USB on Startup Drive
There are two types of clean install of macOS: installing Mac OS on the startup drive and installing the OS on non-startup drive. To perform a clean install on the startup drive, you need to make a bootable USB install drive of macOS, such as macOS High Sierra. Fresh install on the non-startup, on the other hand, requires you to have a second drive on the Mac.
The methods to perform these two types of clean install are different. We will cover the first one - how to clean install macOS High Sierra on Startup drive first.
Step 1: Backup your Mac
To clean install a Mac OS, you have to first erase everything on the drive. Therefore, it is important for you to back up files, apps and other needed data on your Mac before the install of the new OS. You can make a backup of your Mac to iCloud drive or you have to make a Time Machine backup.
Step 2: Make a bootable flash installer of macOS
Next, you need to create a bootable macOS High Sierra USB drive.
- Download macOS High Sierra installer from Mac App Store. If the installer automatically begins to install High Sierra once the download completes, quit the installer.
- Get a 16GB or larger USB drive(to make a bootable flash installer of macOS Sierra or OS X El Capitan, an 8GB flash drive is enough.)
- Plug the USB drive into Mac and format the drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume with a GUID Partition Table: click Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility > the USB drive > Erase.
- Open the Terminal app and enter the following command: sudo /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/UNTITLED && say Boot Installer Complete.If your USB drive has a name, replace “UNTITLED” with your USB drive name.
- Hit Enter key and enter the password of your Mac. Wait for the process to complete and you will have a bootable USB install drive for High Sierra.
Step 3: Erase the startup drive
Firstly, you need to boot up your Mac from the USB flash drive: restart your Mac while holding down the option button, when all of the bootable drives are displayed, select the macOS Sierra installer on the USB drive.
Once the Mac starts up, you will see the following macOS Utilities window.
Click Disk Utility, select your startup drive (usually named as Macintosh HD) and choose Erase. This will delete all contents of your startup, including the current version of the OS, photos, videos, music and other files.
Step 4: Clean install macOS High Sierra
Once the startup drive has been formatted, close Disk Utility and go back to the macOS Utilities window. This time, select Install macOS > Continue. Then choose the startup drive to install the macOS High Sierra.
Let the installation process to complete and your Mac will reboot.
Part 3: Clean Install macOS High Sierra Without USB
If you have an extra drive or volume on your Mac/MacBook/iMac and you would like to keep the older version of Mac OS on your startup drive, it is a good idea to install macOS High Sierra on the non-startup drive to try out the new features. Comparing to install macOS on the startup drive, clean install on the non-startup drive is much simpler because you run the installer directly from your Mac's startup drive with no need to make a bootable USB drive of the installer.
Step 1: Backup your Mac
Whether to fresh install Mac OS on startup or non-startup drive, it is critical to creating a whole backup of your Mac before a major OS install.
Step 2: Download macOS High Sierra installer
Then download macOS High Sierra installer from Mac App Store. The installer will be downloaded to /Applications folder and do not run the installer now.
Step 3: Erase the non-startup drive
If your Mac's non-starup drive contains other Mac operating systems, you need to format the drive with Disk Utility.
Go to Application > Utility > Disk Utility. Select the non-startup volume and choose Erase. After erasing the volume, all data on the volume will be deleted.
Note: If the non-startup drive doesn't have any Mac OS or only contains personal data, you may skip this step.
Step 4 Clean install macOS
Run the macOS High Sierra installer. When seeing this window, choose Show All Disk and select your Mac's non-startup disk to install the macOS. The installer will show the estimated time of completion for the installation process. Wait till the install completes.
Do you have any question with a clean install of macOS High Sierra? Let us know in the comments below.
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Cleaning up anything seems a very laborious task.
I remember how my mother used to bellow at me to clean my room.
But..
..I always had some lame excuse to keep this task at bay.
But unlike then, now it’s totally opposite with me.
Now that I use MacBook, I’m in constant scour for good cleaners for my device.
Keeping the computers and phones clean are not only important to free up space, but it also keeps them safe from Malware and viruses.
Read: Do You Need Virus Protection For Mac?
5 FREE Mac Cleaning Software
Being an Apple products aficionado, and to keep them in good condition, I’ve been using many cleaning apps for my iPhone and MacBook.
I’m listing some of the free Mac Cleaning Softwares and applications for you guys out there who have clogged up PCs and need some memory.
#1: AppCleaner
One of the easiest to use Cleaner of all is AppCleaner.
What you have to do in this application is to just to drag and drop the app that you want to uninstall.
AppCleaner waves its magic wand in two ways.
You can either drop the files manually into the app’s window
or..
..just use the smart delete feature of the app and it will automatically find the files or the data of the deleted files from the trash.
#2: Dr. Cleaner
If you want to speed up and optimize your Mac with just a click then this great app named Dr. Cleaner is just for you.
It cleans your Mac’s disk and frees up a lot of space thus enhancing its performance.
It not only deletes the unwanted files but also eradicates the cache files that are building over a period.
This app is a boon for the amateur Mac users and what else can one ask for but a free app and here you’re served with one.
Clean Up Mac Disk
#3: CCleaner
Want to give your Mac a new kick?
Then you should give a chance to CCleaner.
It’s an effective and simple to use app that makes the Macs fast without touching the privacy of your files.
In fact, it is designed to make the device more secure.
It has three elements - Cleaner, Tools and Options.
These elements remove the junk files, uninstall the programs and fixes or deletes the cookies respectively.
Its paid version has lots of other features
but..
if you just want the basics, then you should go for the free one.
#4: MacClean 3
Why do you let your pretty Mac get cluttered with junk?
MacClean 3 cleans and frees your Mac’s hard drive with zero effort.
It works on the rule of three - Select, Scan and Clean.
It deletes all types of junk, for instance, Internet Junk, System junk, Development Junk etc.
It provides 10 different tools to clean your Mac’s unwanted things totally.
#5: Magican
If you think that buying a Mac frees you from every responsibility of making efforts in maintaining it, then you’re wrong my friend.
Just because the device seems to be working fine doesn’t mean that it don’t need any repair or maintenance.
An optimizer tool, Magican cleans the hard drive of the device from every unnecessary caches and data.
It keeps a check on the status of the system by showing CPU usage and Disk info.
It goes deeply into the stats, which is according to me an efficient feature.
Best Paid Solutions
Now that we’ve discussed the things for freeloaders let me also tell you about the applications, which are paid
but..
..are favorite of Pro Mac users and in which people don’t hesitate while spending, or let me say investing.
This will save you disc space, transmission costs AND valuable working time as well.Features:. If you want a more intuitive GUI client for your compression / decompression needs we suggest you try:, or.WinRAR puts you ahead of the crowd when it comes to compression. By consistently creating smaller archives, WinRAR is often faster than the competition.
#1: CleanMyMac 3
This is my personal favorite and I’d like my readers to give this app a chance.
Mac Os Hard Disk Cleaning
CleanMyMac 3 cleans gigabytes from the system in a matter of seconds.
It has been a very successful app since much time and now can also be supported by OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
There are many features on the app that helps you to clean the whole system in one click or choosing options from cleaning photo, iTunes, trash or other junk.
It is available for $39.95 per Mac license and in my view the cost is worth this beauty.
You can read the detailed review of CleanMyMac 3 here.
#2: Gemini 2
Gemini 2, that doesn’t actually clean the device but deletes the duplicate or much similar looking files is already a favorite of many users.
Based on an exclusive algorithm, it scans and removes the files that are alike and unnecessary.
It just requires a simple process - Drag and Drop.
Available at $19.95, this app is definitely one of its kinds.
You can read the detailed review of Gemini 2 here.
Final Words
I’m sure you also want your device to be absolutely cleaned and work without any lagging.
So, go in the world of these awesome Mac Cleaner apps and get awestruck by their features.