To take the all-new macOS 12 features for a test drive, you installed the macOS 12 beta software on your Mac device. However, a boatload of bugs and unexpected issues may have dampened your excitement, and you are now looking for a way to downgrade from macOS 12 Monterey to macOS Big Sur. Take a breath! In this guide, we will walk you through the step-by-step process to downgrade from macOS 12 Monterey and go back to macOS 11 Big Sur.
Bear in mind that downgrading your Mac will entirely erase macOS 12 from your hard drive. Therefore, make sure to back up your Mac if you don’t want to lose your files, programs, documents, and other important data. You can use an external hard drive or a cloud storage service like DropBox, iCloud, or OneDrive to save your files. Once you have secured your data, let’s move ahead with the guide!
- Make Sure to Allow Booting from External Media on Macs with T2 Chip
- Create a Bootable macOS Big Sur USB Install Drive
- Erase Your Hard Drive
- Reinstall macOS Big Sur on Macs that Came with macOS Big Sur Preinstalled
- Reinstall macOS Big Sur on Macs that Didn’t Come with macOS Big Sur
- Restore Settings from Time Machine Backup
Make Sure to Allow Booting from External Media on Macs with T2 Chip
If you are using a 2018 or newer MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or Mac mini, be sure to enable booting from external media. If you have enabled the Startup Security Utility on your Mac, ensure that you are allowed to use a bootable external drive.
- Next, click “Utilities” in the Menu Bar and choose Startup Security Utility.
Create a Bootable macOS Big Sur USB Install Drive
Before downgrading your Mac and erasing macOS 12, you will need to download macOS 11 from the App Store. Ensure that you have a copy of macOS Big Sur on an external hard drive for the easiest way to downgrade. To get it done, follow our complete guide to create a bootable macOS Big Sur USB installer drive.
Now, it’s time to erase the hard drive before reinstalling macOS Big Sur. Again, I would remind you of backing up your Mac before performing this radical step.
- Next up, click on “Disk Utility” in the OS X Utilities selector. After that, click on Continue to proceed further.
It’s worth pointing out that if your Mac device came with macOS Big Sur pre-installed, you can install macOS Big Sur with ease. Simply restart your Mac while holding down the Shift+Option+Command+R combo to enter Internet Recovery Mode and then install the macOS 11.
If your Mac device didn’t come with macOS Big Sur, follow the steps below:
- Now, hold down the Option/alt key while your computer restarts (keep pressing the Option key until the Apple logo disappears after rebooting).
Using a recent backup of your Mac saved to Time Machine, you can bring back the saved settings with ease. Follow the steps below to restore a recent Time Machine backup after you downgrade from macOS 12 Monterey to macOS Big Sur.
- Ensure that your Mac is connected to a stable internet connection. After that, click on the Apple menu at the top left corner of the screen and choose Restart.
- Next up, click on Continue and then choose the most recent macOS Big Sur backup on the drive. After that, click on Continue.
So, that’s how you can downgrade from macOS 12 Monterey and go back to macOS 11 Big Sur. Beta versions of software generally come with bugs and unexpected issues. That’s why it’s always better to install them on a secondary device. This way, even if you run into any unexpected issues, your work doesn’t get affected. Anyway, let me know your thoughts on macOS 12 beta and what sort of issues you faced.
