How to Download to Hard Drive on Mac Updated

How to Download to Hard Drive on Mac

Worried about installing macOS Monterey beta on your Mac? Don't want to run macOS as your master system? Run it on an external drive.

Concerned about updating your Mac to the latest version of macOS? Perhaps yous aren't certain about running macOS Monterey quite nevertheless, or maybe you want to exam the beta but don't desire to risk messing up your system. Y'all might exist concerned about incompatible software or you lot might but be thinking that y'all might hate information technology and not exist able to go back to the macOS you are familiar with.

Luckily you lot don't accept to install the OS update on your Mac at all - yous can install it on an external drive instead.

Installing the Mac operating organisation on an external drive is the safest way to get a proficient await at a new OS without changing anything on your Mac. Information technology'll exit your current configuration intact and permit you to play around with Monterey or try out the beta of the adjacent version of macOS.

In this tutorial we explicate how to run macOS from an external drive in iv simple steps:

Ready the external drive for the installation using Disk Utility.
Become the macOS install files - we'll show you how.
Install macOS on the external bulldoze.
Run macOS on the external bulldoze past pressing Alt/Option at start upwardly on an Intel-powered Mac, or pressing and property the on switch on an M1 Mac.

What yous need

If you want to run macOS on an external drive you will need a few things including a drive with a good corporeality of storage bachelor.

Brand sure that you opt for flash storage because Apple's APFS (Apple file arrangement) is optimized for SSD and the figurer will exist sluggish if you attempt to kicking from a hard drive. It's also worth investing in a USB C or Thunderbolt 3 bulldoze as this volition offer the fastest connectedness.

You can go concur of a USB flash stick pretty cheaply, such as this San Deejay USB Type-C drive with 256GB for £thirty.93 (RRP £59.99). It's a chip harder to detect a Thunderbolt powered SSD, and unfortunately they are a lot more than expensive. One example is the Samsung X5 Thunderbolt 3 1TB SSD, currently £273.98 from Amazon (RRP £344.99).

If yous desire to apply the external installation as if you are running information technology on your Mac we advise you get the biggest USB C/Thunderbolt three bulldoze you tin afford. For more ownership communication, take a look at our guide to the all-time external drives for Mac.

Troubleshooting problems with the M1 Mac

Before we move on to how y'all can create this external installation of macOS we will mention some bug people had when trying to create such an installation for an M1 Mac.

Later the starting time M1 Macs launched in 2020 it emerged that at that place was a trouble with the USB interface. Equally a result some users encountered problems trying to install macOS on and booting from SSDs connected via USB. This effect was quickly addressed in Big Sur 11.0.1, improved further in 11.one and refined again in 11.2. The problem has at present been addressed by Apple tree'southward developers, merely if you detect information technology affects you nosotros suggest that yous do the post-obit:

Try a dissimilar port. For some information technology has worked to install on a deejay continued via USB-A connector, but non USB-C, while the situation has been vice versa for others.
Another solution is to use a drive that uses Thunderbolt rather than USB (the port looks the same, but the standard is dissimilar). It should be connected directly to the computer, not via a dock. That drive will need a good amount of space (back when we started running Mojave beta on a 32GB stick nosotros found it wasn't enough one time we started using iCloud Desktop and other features that meant that our information started being downloaded).

Another issue worth flagging is that if you were hoping to apply this boot bulldoze to run older versions of macOS on M1 Macs sadly information technology isn't possible every bit the M1 Mac can only run the ARM version of Big Sur.

Install MacOS on a external drive

Step 1: Prepare the drive for installation

Follow these instructions to prepare your external drive - note that there may exist some slight changes to the process if you wish to install the macOS Monterey or the latest beta.

Connect the external drive to your Mac.
Launch Disk Utility (press Cmd + spacebar and showtime to blazon Disk Utility).
Before this next step - if you are running High Sierra or after y'all volition need to click on the View drop downward below the close/minimise buttons. Choose Show All Devices from the options. At present you will see the root bulldoze in addition to the external volume below it.
Select the External drive in the sidebar (the adjacent stride won't piece of work if you but select the volume - in the screenshot above you would need to select the SanDisk, not the NO Name).
Click on Erase (you need to erase the drive so you can reformat it properly).
Give your drive a name such every bit "macOS Big Sur" or "USB".
Choose Mac Os Extended (Journaled) as the Format.
Cull GUID Sectionalisation Map every bit the Scheme.
Click on Erase.
Wait while Deejay Utility creates the partition and sets upwardly the bulldoze (this can take a few minutes).
Then click Done.

Now you volition see that your external storage has been renamed with the name you cull and it volition be gear up for y'all to install the macOS on it - but there is something else you demand to do first.

Step 2: Get the macOS install files

This step will depend on whether you lot desire to run a macOS beta, a full version of macOS, or even an older Mac OS X.

Whether you desire to get the macOS Monterey or the latest beta installation files the procedure to exist similar to that detailed below. When Monterey becomes available to download on 25 October 2021 you lot should be able to become the installation files via Software Update or the Mac App Store.

Here's how to get the macOS Big Sur or Catalina installer:

To download the macOS Big Sur installer click here to go to the Large Sur page on the Mac App Shop. To download the macOS Catalina installer click on this link to the Mac App Store.
Click on Get to download the installer.
Software Update will search and so, if y'all are already running Big Sur (or Catalina), if will ask y'all to confirm that you exercise desire to download macOS Big Sur (or Catalina).
Click on Download.

Remember that yous just want to download the software, not install it, at this stage.

If information technology's a full version of an older version of macOS you are afterwards, we explain how to get the installation files for macOS here.

If you are later on a beta of macOS, you will need to sign upward for the beta on your Mac and download the beta files. Once you have the files you'll want to install them on the external drive rather than your Mac, so be careful. We have a complete guide to getting the macOS beta here. The beta files are about 12GB.

Pace 3: Install macOS on the external bulldoze

At present to install the beta or alternative version of the Mac operating arrangement on your external drive.

Open a finder window, go to Applications and find the Catalina or Big Sur installer (or whichever version of macOS you desire to run). You can also observe it past using Spotlight (press Control + spacebar and start typing the name of the OS)
Click on the installer.
A window should open (check the Dock if not). It volition invite you to set up the installation of macOS Monterey (or whatsoever) click Go on.
Hold to the software licence understanding.
Side by side, and this is important, click on Prove All Disks. Exercise not click on Home every bit you lot don't want to install on your master bulldoze.
Click on the external bulldoze.
Click Install.

Expect while the version of macOS installs on the bulldoze. This process may take a while - if it tells y'all it will take 10 minutes it'southward lying.

Annotation: This will non work if you didn't ready your external drive upward correctly as a GUID Partition as per the steps above.

Stride 4: Run macOS on the external bulldoze

In that location are 2 ways to run the version of macOS from your external drive

Either:

Open System Preferences > Startup Disk.
Select the external bulldoze yous wish to utilise to start up the Mac and click Restart.

Or:

Hold down Option/Alt during startup on an Intel-powered Mac, or press and hold the on button on an M1 Mac until you see the start up options.
Pick the drive y'all wish to use to start up the Mac.

Once you have installed the macOS you want on the drive it should be piece of cake to install subsequent updates there via System Preferences.

For more communication about installing macOS or Mac OS Ten read How to update the Mac operating organization and How to install old versions of OS Ten on a Mac.

Author: Karen Haslam, Editor

Karen Haslam

An ex-Apple PR, Karen'southward career highlights include interviewing Apple's Steve Wozniak and discussing Steve Jobs' legacy on the BBC. Her focus is Mac, but she lives and breathes Apple.