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Apple - Self-Upgrade your MacOS

Apple - Self-Upgrade your MacOS

Owned by Tess Walsh
Last updated: May 07, 2024
2 min read

Before You Start

As with any significant change to your computer, you must back up your data. You can place important files in OneDrive, place them on an external hard drive, or use any other backup method you're comfortable with. If you have further questions about backing up your computer, please contact the ITS Help Desk. 

An operating system upgrade can take time. We recommend setting aside a full day for the process. While the active time you will be working on this will be minimal, you may not have productive access to your computer during your upgrade day.

Any large upgrade of a computer presents a small chance for problems. If a problem occurs, ITS may need to intervene, and that may take some time. We strongly recommend choosing a time when you do not have a critical need for the computer within a business day of the upgrade if something goes wrong. For example, we would not recommend upgrading your computer the day before travel or during the weekend before an important conference.  

 Confirm that you have at least 26GB of free space required to perform the upgrade. If you don’t have enough space, you may need to offload some files to OneDrive or an external hard drive. Alternatively, you could delete unused applications. If you need assistance, please contact the Help Desk. 

To check your available free space: 

  1. Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen.

  2. Click About this Mac.

  3. Click the Storage tab

  4. Under Macintosh HD (or similar name), the available space is shown. 

Note: ITS recommends printing these instructions or having them available on another device as you go through this process. The approximate time to complete this upgrade is 4 hours.

Upgrade Your Operating System (OS)

  1. Close all open applications.

  2. Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your screen. 

  3. Click System Preferences (MacOS 12 or lower) or System Settings (MacOS 13 or higher).

  4. Click Software Update. 

  5. If there are any available updates, you will see a button labeled Update Now. Click the button to begin the update process.

After You Upgrade

Sophos 

Please follow the directions linked below to make sure Sophos Antivirus continues to run on your updated Mac:

You will likely see security notices about granting Sophos full-disk access and a network extension permission on your Mac. After completing the above steps, Sophos may continue to show errors until your computer has been rebooted multiple times. Sophos requires multiple reboots to fully upgrade itself to the latest available antivirus version. 

Applications 

You may find that some applications on your system have a gray crossed-out circle on them, indicating they will no longer run. 

If you identify such an application, you will need to download and install an updated version of that software that supports macOS 12 or higher. Please alert the ITS Help Desk if you experience this so ITS can advise other users. 

Support

ITS Help Desk

ITS Help Desk

Phone: 508-793-7745

Email: helpdesk@clarku.edu

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