Boot a Mac or MacBook into recovery mode

Boot a Mac or MacBook into recovery mode

Information

If you need to use recovery tools or diagnosing a problem booting into recovery mode on a Mac or MacBook may help to resolve various issues or allow you to rebuild the machine.

Steps

Choose from the below steps as appropriate to the machine type you are working on.

For M1 Macs

  1. Boot into recovery mode to troubleshoot there.
  2. Turn off Mac.
  3. Press and hold power button until you see booting into recovery mode.
  4. Then click options and continue.

For Intel Macs

  1. Press and hold the power button until the Mac turns off.
  2. Restart the Mac and immediately press and hold the Command and R keys.
  3. Release those keys when you see the loading bar
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