After months of beta testing, Apple has rolled out macOS 10.15 Catalina to public users. You can download and install macOS Catalina if you have a compatible Mac. The macOS Catalina brings tons of new features such as the Apple Arcade, Screen Time, Voice Control, Sidecar, and Find My app. It has also replaced iTunes with three independent apps – Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple TV.
Is your Mac compatible with macOS Catalina?
Here’s the list of Mac devices compatible with the new software update:
- MacBook (Early 2015 or later)
- MacBook Air (Mid 2012 or later)
- MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 or later)
- Mac mini (Late 2012 or later)
- iMac (Late 2012 or later)
- iMac Pro (2017)
- Mac Pro (Late 2013 or later)
Download Hackintosh Catalina Installer: Catalina Installer is a distribution of macOS Catalina that has been made to work with PCs. You will need to use a BitTorrent client to download the disk image file containing Hackintosh Catalina, which is a little less than 6 GB in size. You must register on the website to be able to download anything. Install macOS Catalina on VMware on Windows PC Install macOS Catalina on VirtualBox. While VirtualBox is an undeniable rival and well-known competitor of VMWare Workstation, it also functions and works super easy super powerful, which makes it the favorite virtual machine app that is completely free to use. MacOS Catalina Setup Process. Agree to the macOS Catalina License agreement. Select macOS Catalina Disk and click Install. Agree to the Terms and Conditions. Select Installation Disk for Catalina. Now, wait for 3 minutes and your VM will restart. MacOS Catalina will be installed on your Disk. Enabling content caching has also helped some users fix macOS Catalina install or update errors so it is worth giving this method a try. Click on the Apple logo at the top-left corner and select System Preferences. How To Reinstall Mac OS Catalina. It’s important to note that when you reinstall macOS Catalina the process simply updates the operating system and doesn’t affect any files on your hard drive or user files or even settings. That makes reinstalling principally different from performing a clean install, which erases everything.
How to clean install the new software update
Upgrading to macOS 10.15 Catalina is pretty simple. Tap on the Apple icon in the top-left corner of the screen, then go to System Preferences > Software Update to download it. Alternatively, you can download it directly from the Mac App Store.
But sometimes upgrading macOS from the previous version to the latest one is not the best way. You might want to clean install macOS Catalina to give your Mac a fresh start without any issues from the previous installation. Here’s how to clean install macOS Catalina from USB drive:
Steps to install
- Take a full backup of all your important data. Save it to the cloud or an external drive
- You have to create a bootable USB drive. Here’s how you can create it. Make sure the USB drive is at least 8GB in size, and nothing else is stored on it
- Download the macOS Catalina installation file using this link
- Turn off the Mac and then insert the bootable USB drive
- Now turn the Mac back on while holding the Option key
- It will take you to the boot menu where you can select the USB drive. If your Mac has the T2 security chip, you have to first enable booting via external drives from macOS Recovery
- After a while, you’ll see the macOS Utilities menu on the screen. Select Disk Utility and then Continue
- Check to make sure you’ve selected the main drive of your Mac. Also ensure that the format is set as APFS or Mac OS Extended
- Now click Erase to wipe out the drive
- Once the drive has been erased, select Install macOS and then Continue. Just follow the on-screen prompts to clean install macOS Catalina
Installing Macos Catalina On Vmware
Once you’ve successfully installed the new software, you can transfer all your data back from the cloud or external storage drive to the Mac. Also, head over to the Mac App Store and re-install all the apps you want.