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Apple’s macOS has lengthy supplied many key mixtures you’ll be able to maintain down when your Mac begins. When beginning up your Mac, you would possibly wish to select a distinct Startup Disk, boot into Restoration mode, right into a Boot Camp Home windows quantity, or use one among Apple’s built-in Mac utilities. Startup key mixtures will let you select what runs when your Mac boots.

For all startup key mixtures, the precise keys to press could also be totally different relying on whether or not you are utilizing an Apple Silicon-based Mac or an Intel Mac.

Startup Disk Choice

Startup Disk choice is totally different relying on whether or not you are utilizing an Intel-based Mac, or an Apple Silicon Mac.

On Intel Macs, in case you maintain down the Choice key earlier than your Mac boots however after you energy it on, you may get a graphical startup disk menu choice which lets you interrupt startup to pick which quantity to start out up from. This menu lives in your Mac’s firmware and permits you to change Startup Disks in case your regular Startup Disk turns into unbootable for some purpose:

Inner drives are listed first, then USB, Thunderbolt, FireWire, and different exterior drives. If any network-bootable drives can be found, they’re listed final.

On Apple Silicon Macs, the method is comparable, however as a substitute of holding down the Choice key, press and maintain the facility button till the quantity listing seems.

If in case you have an Intel Mac with an Apple T2 Safety Chip, you might have to set safety choices utilizing Startup Safety Utility first earlier than you should utilize the boot Startup Disk characteristic. This app permits you to set a firmware password, and designate in case you can boot exterior drives.

There is a full help article on learn how to use the Startup Safety Utility. Additionally see Apple’s Set a firmware password in your Mac.

The listing of bootable Startup Disks within the Startup Disk choice firmware menu is similar because the drive listing that seems in Startup Disk management panel in Settings.

Should you maintain down the Shift key after deciding on a Startup Disk, however whereas urgent the Proceed or up-arrow button, your Mac will startup in Protected Mode.

Begin Up in Apple Diagnostics

To begin up into Apple Diagnostics on Apple Silicon Macs, which additionally lives in your Mac’s firmware, comply with the identical process as Startup Disk Choice above, however as a substitute of continuous to a specific Startup Disk, press Command D to enter Diagnostics.

On Intel Macs, as a substitute of the earlier process, merely maintain down the D key on startup. This web page describes the diag process and a few outcome codes.

Firmware Restoration Mode

If for some purpose your Mac turns into unbootable, there’s additionally a built-in firmware Restoration Utility. As well into Restoration Utility, on Intel Macs maintain down the Command R keys on startup till you see the Apple brand.

On Apple Silicon Macs, comply with the identical process as in Startup Disk Choice, however as a substitute of choosing a drive in addition from, choose the Choices gear icon. You may proceed to Restoration.

As soon as in Restoration, you’ve 4 choices:

Most of those are self-explanatory aside from Reinstall macOS. In that case, the standard workflow is to pick the Disk Utility choice, erase a drive to reinstall macOS onto, then Stop Disk Utility, which takes you again to the Restoration menu.

Then choose Reinstall macOS to do a clear set up onto the drive you simply erased. Be aware nonetheless that erasing a drive destroys all present information on it and there is not any recovering the info. Watch out when utilizing this feature.

It’s potential to run Reinstall macOS instantly onto a beforehand used drive containing information or a replica of macOS. The installer is wise sufficient to not destroy any information Apple beforehand created, and it is also sensible sufficient to protect any third social gathering software program which will have been beforehand put in on a drive containing a replica of macOS.

However this does not assure you’ll be able to get well the drive, solely you can set up a brand new copy of macOS onto it to make it bootable.

To make use of one of many Restoration choices, choose it from the menu and click on Proceed. Apple has a full article on learn how to startup into and use Restoration.

On Apple Silicon-based Macs, just a few different Restoration choices can be found:

1. Startup Safety Utilty
2. Terminal
3. Share Disk
4. Startup Disk

For full Restoration choices on Apple Silicon-based Macs, see this text.

Web Restoration Mode

If in case you have an web connection, you can begin up in Web Restoration Mode, which is similar as Firmware Restoration Mode, besides that it masses the Restoration app from Apple’s servers over the web. This feature might take longer to start out, for apparent causes. To startup in Web Restoration Mode, maintain down Command+Choice+R or Command+Choice+Shift+R on startup.

Protected Mode

To begin up in Protected Mode, merely maintain down the Shift key on begin up. Protected Mode boots macOS however disables most extensions, drivers, and different third social gathering boot-time software program. This characteristic is helpful if a specific piece of software program acquired put in that hangs on startup.

This keystroke is just obtainable on Intel-based Macs.

Protected Mode could be induced on Apple Silicon by urgent and holding the facility button till “Loading startup choices” seems. After you choose a quantity, press and maintain the shift key, then click on Proceed in Protected Mode.

Reset PRAM

That is the oldest of all Mac startup choices, going all the way in which again to the Mac Plus. Higher often known as “zapping-PRAM”, in case you maintain down Command Choice P R on startup, all of the settings within the Basic, Mouse, and Keyboard System Settings are reset to their defaults.

This additionally resets issues resembling key repeat price, mouse velocity, acceleration, and secondary mouse choices. Trackpad settings are additionally reset to their defaults. Some Sound settings might also be reset.

This feature is just obtainable on Intel-based Macs. Apple has rather more info on the subject.

Reset SMC

Use this feature with warning. Some Macs can get right into a state wherein a particular chip on the motherboard known as the System Administration Controller (SMC) will get confused and refuses to permit begin up. Inner followers are additionally managed by the SMC.

On some Macs, unusual fan velocity conduct might seem when SMC wants resetting. In such circumstances, reset the SMC by holding down Shift-Management-Choice on startup.

Normally a SMC reset is sufficient to get the Mac booting once more, assuming the Startup Disk hasn’t been corrupted. On some Macs to reset the SMC, you might have to first unplug, then re-plug the facility wire earlier than utilizing the important thing combo on startup.

Single Consumer Mode

On macOS variations sooner than Mojave, you’ll be able to maintain down Command S on startup and solely the default Administrator person account will likely be obtainable. This was primarily a safety characteristic and is not obtainable on macOS variations Mojave or later.

Goal Disk Mode

On Intel-based Macs, in case you maintain down the T key on startup, your Mac will boot right into a particular mode known as Goal Disk Mode (TDM). This mode permits a Mac for use as if it was an exterior disk by one other Mac linked by way of a USB, USB-C, or Thunderbolt cable.

This characteristic was initially developed on older Macs which had FireWire ports, nevertheless it nonetheless works in the present day. To make use of it, join two Macs by way of one of many talked about cables, restart the Mac you wish to use as a disk whereas holding down T, then open System Settings->Startup Disk on the opposite Mac and choose the Mac working in TDM because the Startup Disk.

Once you restart, the non-TDM Mac will boot over the cable into the TDM Mac’s drive. A particular disk icon will seem on the show of the TDM Mac. Apple has an article on learn how to switch recordsdata between two Macs utilizing Goal Disk Mode. TDM is just obtainable on Intel-based Macs.

For the same course of on Apple Silicon-based Macs, see this text.

Verbose Mode

Usually, whereas your Mac is booting and the Apple brand is being displayed, the FreeBSD-based Darwin core system is beginning up a number of system providers, {hardware}, drivers, extensions, and loading the core OS.

There is a hidden approach to see precisely what Darwin is doing whereas booting. Maintain down Command V whereas beginning up. As an alternative of the Apple brand, you may see all of the Darwin startup system messages scroll by as every step is accomplished. Verbose Mode is just obtainable on Intel-based Macs.

Startup from Optical Drive

On Macs with an optical drive resembling an inside DVD-R/ROM drive, maintain down the C button to startup from the optical disk. The disk should be bootable and have a working working system on it so as to boot from it.

Eject Optical Drive

If you cannot begin up your Mac and have an non-bootable optical disk caught within the Mac’s inside optical drive, you’ll be able to eject the disk previous to startup by holding down the mouse/trackpad button, or the Eject or F12 key on the keyboard when powering on. This feature permits you to insert a distinct optical disk and take a look at booting once more.

Pressure Restart

If, for any purpose you want to force-restart your Mac, you are able to do so by urgent the energy button twice: in case your Mac is already on, maintain down the energy button till it turns off.

As soon as off, press the energy button once more usually to restart. Onerous-restarting your Mac might end in elevated boot time the subsequent time you restart as macOS will run some disk test or restore apps behind the scenes to ensure the OS is reset to a secure, bootable state.

Pressure macOS-Solely Startup

Should you had beforehand set a non-macOS quantity resembling a Home windows quantity to be your Startup Disk, you’ll be able to as a substitute drive a macOS quantity to be chosen by holding down the X key when beginning up. In case your Mac finds a bootable macOS quantity within the volumes listing, it’s going to begin up from the primary bootable macOS quantity it finds.

Forestall Login Gadgets from Operating

You’ll be able to cease all Login Gadgets from working on login, however provided that you maintain down the Shift key after clicking the Login arrow button on the Mac’s login display screen. Be aware that that is totally different from Protected Mode above since you maintain down the Shift key instantly after clicking the Login button versus holding down Shift whereas powering in your Mac.

Startup/Set up from a NetBoot Server

Early variations of Mac OS X Server included a networking expertise known as NetBoot and NetInstall. The server shipped with a separate NetBoot set up CD for including bootable options to a Mac OS X Server. The concept was to retailer frequent set up and boot photos of Mac OS X on a server, and customers may set up from and boot from these photos over a community.

It was an excellent thought, though it was just a little sluggish.

Later, Mac OS X Server turned a standalone app for macOS which added all of the server options just by downloading and working a single Server app from the Mac App Retailer. Apple discontinued Server and NetBoot help in 2021. To begin up from a NetBoot Server on Macs which nonetheless help it, maintain down the N key whereas beginning up.

On older Macs, to make a server-hosted NetBoot disk picture your Startup Disk, go to System Settings->Startup Disk and search for any disk icon with a globe on it:

NetBoot has largely been changed by a extra trendy common web boot expertise known as PXE which works on most platforms. Oddly, third social gathering builders have saved NetBoot alive by recreating its options in some variations of PXE.

There may be additionally a contemporary NetBoot-like undertaking known as netboot.xyz which relies on iPXE for web booting. There may be additionally an older article from College of Utah written in 2007 on learn how to set up and setup a NetBoot server.

Historic Historical past Further Credit score (Boot to OpenFirmware)

Should you occur to be round an outdated “NewWorld” ROM-based Mac from the late 1990’s, you’ll be able to amaze your pals by displaying them learn how to boot into Open Firmware. Beginning with the primary iMac and Energy Macintosh G3 computer systems in 1998, and till the transition to Intel CPUs, Macs used Open Firmware and newer, trendy ROMs known as NewWorld ROMs.

NewWorld contained many of the outdated Mac OS 9 OS within the ROMs on the motherboard, however used Open Firmware for the pre-OS boot sequence.

As well a NewWorld ROM Mac into Open Firmware whereas powering on, maintain down Command+Choice+O+F. You can be left on the Open Firmware command immediate, however should know Open Firmware instructions so as to proceed.

After the change to Intel CPUs, newer Macs switched from Open Firmware to EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface).