The article lists the Apple support documents for installing Yosemite, El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, Mojave and Catalina. Each of the support documents has links to the installers, and according to the senior AppleCare advisor those links are the official way to obtain the installers. If you’re running any release from macOS 10.13 to 10.9, you can upgrade to macOS Big Sur from the App Store. If you’re running Mountain Lion 10.8, you will need to upgrade to El Capitan 10.11 first. Learn more about how to upgrade. Upgrade to Sierra. Download Sierra from the App Store and apply the upgrade. The El Capitan versions of those Apple applications can't use the upgraded data. 25 votes, 35 comments. Hey I wanted to know what is everybody experience upgrading to Sierra from El Capitan. Is the Operating System Faster, Add.

macOS Sierra is here, but are you ready? OS upgrades offer the thrill of new features, better performance and bug fixes, but they can come at a price — your time and potentially your productivity. If you upgrade your OS only to discover that a critical third-party application or peripheral doesn't work right, you could be really lost when you discover that it's impossible to downgrade to a previous OS. Unless, that is, you have a complete, bootable backup of your Mac, pre-Sierra.

Make your bootable backup before upgrading

1. Get a backup disk. If you need advice, we offer some here in CCC's documentation
2. Download CCC and fire it up
3. Choose your startup disk from the Source selector
4. Choose your backup volume in the Destination selector
5. Click the Clone button
6. Sit back and watch the fastest cloning tool on Earth
7. Detach your backup disk from your Mac and set it aside for a couple days. At least initially, you don't want the backup disk to be upgraded automatically by a scheduled backup task.

Once your clone is finished, test that your backup drive is bootable by selecting the backup disk as your startup disk in System Preferences and then restarting. Don't forget to change your startup disk back and restart after you test!

Upgrade to Sierra

Download Sierra from the App Store and apply the upgrade.

Install! Play! And make sure everything is working...

Take some time to run the applications that are most important to you. If, after a week or so you decide that everything is copacetic and you are ready to commit to the new operating system, fire up CCC and re-run the backup task with the same settings — CCC will update your backup volume with only the items that have changed since your last backup. This is an important step — once the backup task has completed, the operating system on your backup disk will match the source, and you will no longer be able to use the backup to downgrade to the previous OS.

If you have to downgrade, here's what you need to do

Keep in mind that when you open an Apple application on Sierra (e.g. Mail or Calendar), those applications will immediately and irreversibly upgrade the user data for those applications. You cannot simply reinstall El Capitan (for example), then go about your day with the upgraded user data; the El Capitan versions of those Apple applications can't use the upgraded data. If you need to downgrade to a previous OS, it is imperative that you have a complete, bootable backup of your Mac as it was prior to the upgrade.

To effectively restore everything back to a previous version of the OS, do the following:

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1. Attach your CCC backup disk to your Mac
2. Open the Startup Disk preference pane in the System Preferences application
3. Choose your backup volume as the startup disk, then click on the Restart button
4. Ah yes, there's your old Mac, everything in order! If you need to get real work done, go right ahead. Anything you modify on the backup disk will be restored later.
5. Launch CCC
6. Select your backup volume from the source selector
7. Select your Sierra volume from the destination selector
8. Stick with the default settings — SafetyNet On
9. Click the Clone button

When the restore process has completed, reset your startup disk in the System Preferences application and restart your Mac. You'll be back to your previous OS in no time! It'll be like putting on an old, comfortable pair of shoes that were just sitting there in the back of your closet, waiting for you to come home.

Note: If you created or modified any documents while the system was running Sierra, the older versions of your files will be restored. You can retrieve your more-recently-created documents from the _CCC SafetyNet folder at the root of your startup disk. Unfortunately, your personal data created by Apple applications (e.g. Calendar, AddressBook, Mail, Photos, etc.) while using the newer OS will be incompatible with an older OS, so it is not possible to restore that information. But you can retrieve specific documents created in other applications.

We're here to help

If you get stuck or need some advice, you can get help right from within CCC. Choose 'Ask a question' from CCC's Help menu to pose a question to our Help Desk.

Make your Mac invincible

The day has come, High Sierra is available for upgrade. In case you were hesitant about whether you should rush to do it, don’t be. It’s a solid improvement with a whole bunch of new features. The new Apple File System and the end of autoplaying videos in Safari browser alone are worth it. You can check our separate entry on High Sierra features if you want. So, let us proceed to the macOS update and preparation.

Important notice: Apple has recently pulled down macOS Sierra installer from the Mac App Store. This means that if you decide to upgrade now, the only OS you’ll be able to go back to is El Capitan. We kindly advise you to consider this before upgrading and make sure you’ll be willing to keep High Sierra for the next year.

Can your Mac update macOS this time?

Here are all the Mac models that are fit to run the latest OS 10.13.

Does your Mac have enough space and RAM?

Hardware requirements haven’t changed since last time, so it’s still like this:

A few things before you install new macOS 10.13 High Sierra

To check your available disk space, click on the Apple icon in the top left corner of your screen and choose About this Mac.

Find the Storage tab and see how much free space you have. If it’s low, get a Mac cleaner to free up some space. Let's talk about it in detail.

Clean up your Mac

Mac software update always works better on a clean computer, without old cache files, leftovers, and random system junk. So before you go get yourself that new High Sierra download and run it, make sure you have a clean Mac. There’s a great app for that, CleanMyMac. It deals with all kinds of system and hard drive trash in minutes, so you don’t have to lift a finger looking for junk manually.

Don’t forget to back up important data

Another step that needs to be remembered at all times: back up. Back it all up.

Upgrades are mostly safe and stable but you really don’t want to be that one accidental glitch in the system where your files get corrupted. So a proper backup is a must. You can get a powerful software for the job, Get Backup Pro. It’s faster and more secure than the native Time Machine.

Check Hard Disk for Errors, Health, Bad Sectors before upgrade macOS

You might also want to check your disk for errors before upgrading.

You can do it with Disk Utility app:

1. Simply open Disk Utility app
2. Click on First Aid and run it. It will check your startup disk for possible errors and fix them if it finds anything.

And run disk bad sector checking with Disk Drill app:

Should you upgrade or get a clean install?

First, you probably want to know what’s the difference between the two. Upgrade is a simple installation of a new system over the old one, where the core software gets upgraded while your files and system preferences remain intact.

A clean install, on the other hand, is a more radical way of upgrade that removes all your files on the hard drive. Now, why would you want that? Well, your system could’ve been misbehaving lately, your hard drive overloaded and you don’t feel like cleaning it, or you just want that feeling of a brand new Mac again. In this case you’ll have to upload the files you still need in the cloud or save them on another drive.

How To Upgrade El Capitan To Sierra On Macbook Pro

How to download macOS High Sierra

This is pretty easy, even though not always fast. Your latest macOS download is on the Mac App Store.

So, follow these steps to download and update macOS:

1. Make sure you have a fast and stable WiFi connection. Don’t use public networks in cafes/hotels for upgrades, they can be of poor quality and interrupt the process.
2. Open the App Store app on your Mac.
3. Fin the last tab in the top menu, Updates.
4. Click it.
5. One of the updates is macOS High Sierra.
6. Click Update.
7. Your download has started.
8. High Sierra will update automatically when downloaded.

After you upgrade to new macOS 10.13

While you’re enjoying your new system, here’s how to make your experience even better. New macOS always feels like a fresh start, which means it’s time to take care of your Mac. With Setapp subscription you not only get CleanMyMac and Get Backup Pro that we mentioned earlier, but a whole collection of super-handy applications.

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For instance, Setapp has apps to keep your Mac safe and healthy, like iStat Menus with real-time performance analytics. You can see how your Mac is doing, is it overheating or running out of RAM, view battery life, and a whole set of other indicators. iStat Menus is a real heart monitor for computers and it lets you catch every minor issue before it gets major.

There’s also Disk Drill app to recover your data. It’s a handy app with a bunch of irreplaceable features like restoring your files in case the drive was corrupted, analyzing your disk to see what hogs space on it, and duplicate file removal. So everything you need on Mac in one app subscription. Give it a spin, it’s free for a week.

We hope this guide has been of help to you. Have a good upgrade, cheers!

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Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.

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