I am running Mojavie. Can i upgrade to big sur while skipping Catalina?Also do you recommend a CLEAN upgrade or not. Thanks
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george
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Can I Upgrade to Big Sur From Mojave?
Comments: 4 Responses to “Can I Upgrade to Big Sur From Mojave?”
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Yes, you can jump right from Big Sur to Mojave. At least you should be able to -- no one has been able to try yet since the public release of Big Sur isn't out yet. But previous versions of macOS have allowed you to do this.
No, I do not recommend a clean install unless you have a good reason to do it. Just do the normal upgrade. Wiping your drive, installing the system from scratch and restoring your files is very time-consuming and prone to user error. Clean installs had some benefits in the distant past, but really aren't needed today.
Make sure you back up, of course, before you do the upgrade. But you are doing that anyway, right?
I agree that clean installs are not needed most of the time, but sometimes they are needed for various reasons. I have done a few. It would be nice to have a clear tutorial on this procedure from a trusted source: Macmost.
Thanks as always for the correct information Gary!
Apple does have a guide for how to create a USB install drives for Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, and El Capitan.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
I used these steps yesterday evening to create a USB install drive and completely erase the drive of my secondary computer that is a late-2015 iMac 5K so that I could do a clean install of Big Sur. I have also used these steps for other recent versions of macOS.