Should I install the Sequoia beta on my only Mac that I use for school or work?

[CalMin]

Q: "I only have one Mac and it's critical for me because I use it for school/work and I don't have a backup Mac. Is it safe to install the developer/public beta?"

A: NO.

Q:"But it has cool new stuff that I want?"

A: NO.

Q:"But Apple Intelligence...?"

A: NO.

Q:"But iPhone mirroring...?"

A: NO.

Q:" But I have a backup from 6-months ago..."

A: NO.

Q" But I have a backup from last night..."

A: NO. No, no, no, no, no.

--

Posting to pre-empt the inevitable slew of posts asking it it's safe to install the beta on your ONLY Mac. The answer is always no and should always be no. There's always the risk to your data, incompatible apps, and not being able to roll back in case of problems.

Even with a backup, you might not be able to roll back, or it might hose your machine and then you will have to visit an Apple Store and if you depend on that Mac, then you will be in trouble.

Don't do it.

 

[hch720]

What feature are you wanting to use? I would maybe go for it if iPhone mirroring was available, but it’s not yet

 

[NEPOBABY]

No. Beta must go on a test machine. Betas can have surprising bugs that can cause total loss of data.

Don't listen to anyone who says the early betas are totally bug free and everything works. Some people do this every year and then next month come crying about system crashes on their work machine.

 

[eoblaed]

Installing it on all of your Macs, though... that wasn't covered by all the 'no's

 

[mansplains]

I've been doing the betas on my only mac (and iPhone, iPad, Watch) for years. Obviously my experience won't speak for all, but it has been just fine. And now as a student with Sequoia, there haven't been any issues. It really depends on the software you rely on. A lot of the software I need is available as a web version, and adobe has been fine. For my hobbies, DAWs and VSTs have worked, SoundSource is the only related outlier (and there are test releases in the meantime). Ultimaker, Fusion 360, DaVinci Resolve... all fine.

Don't listen to anyone who says the early betas are totally bug free and everything works. Some people do this every year and then next month come crying about system crashes on their work machine.

The early releases (and later releases) are certainly not bug free. I think if you're an enthusiast willing to troubleshoot and report issues, it adds to the adventure.

All to say there's inherent risk, which should be weighed. If you're the type of user who has to ask whether to install, that's where I'd say the default "no" makes sense. If you know what you're getting yourself into, it can be fun.

 

[nintendoswitch]

I‘ve been using Mac for almost 2 years now, so correct me if I’m wrong, but i believe if you do only have one Mac and want to try the sequoia beta, you should just set up a dual boot disk/partition for the beta that way you can try it without worrying about the consequences of losing your data on your main disk/partition. I believe you can do this in parallels desktop as well. But yeah, definitely do NOT install the beta if you do not want to use dual boot or use a Virtual Machine.

I learned this the hard way last year when I got the Sonoma beta, and on beta 3 or 4 my Mac would crash constantly. Thankfully I was able to download the Ventura installer and reinstall macOS without a problem.

 

[toru173]

Came here to say this - @CalMin thank you for making the first post so clear!

A lot of people aren’t aware that installing beta updates also installs beta firmware. You can always wipe the OS and re-install the latest release operating system, but there has never been a way (to my knowledge) to revert to release firmware. Once you install it, there’s no going back. In fact, even installing to an external hard drive could mess up your primary boot if the beta firmware doesn’t agree with your main OS install!

This has been the case since El Capitan or thereabouts, and I don’t see it mentioned nearly enough.

 

[haralds]

For Devs Apple pretty much supports:
- Adding a Volume to your dev machine.
- Installing the macOS beta in parallel to the shipping OS.
Virtualization is not quite there to be enough for testing.
All support volumes are now added to a group. Deleting a volume in Disk Utilities now offers to delete the associated volume group.

 

[coffeemilktea]

Q: "But would it be fun to do it?"

A:

 

[bousozoku]

Only install beta test software if you are prepared to lose everything and start from scratch.

 

[dialekt]

I've been doing the betas on my only mac (and iPhone, iPad, Watch) for years. Obviously my experience won't speak for all, but it has been just fine. And now as a student with Sequoia, there haven't been any issues. It really depends on the software you rely on. A lot of the software I need is available as a web version, and adobe has been fine. For my hobbies, DAWs and VSTs have worked, SoundSource is the only related outlier (and there are test releases in the meantime). Ultimaker, Fusion 360, DaVinci Resolve... all fine.


The early releases (and later releases) are certainly not bug free. I think if you're an enthusiast willing to troubleshoot and report issues, it adds to the adventure.

All to say there's inherent risk, which should be weighed. If you're the type of user who has to ask whether to install, that's where I'd say the default "no" makes sense. If you know what you're getting yourself into, it can be fun.

I was coming here just for this ! Davinci Resolve working? are you on 19 perhaps? any word on Final Cut? I'm scared of my DJ programs not working (rekordbox etc)

 

[Fishrrman]

If you want to try Sequoia WITHOUT DISTURBING your current Mac OS install, the "way to do it" is to install onto an EXTERNAL SSD.

USB3 or USB3.1 gen2 will be fine.

It doesn't have to be large -- 256gb will do, even 128gb should work ok.

Now one can "switch boot" between OS's.
You could "bring over" a copy of your existing setup using migration assistant -- or "start fresh".

If things don't go well with Sequoia, it's nothing to just erase the SSD and either try again later or use it for something else.

 

[M3Stang]

Came here to say this - @CalMin thank you for making the first post so clear!

A lot of people aren’t aware that installing beta updates also installs beta firmware. You can always wipe the OS and re-install the latest release operating system, but there has never been a way (to my knowledge) to revert to release firmware. Once you install it, there’s no going back. In fact, even installing to an external hard drive could mess up your primary boot if the beta firmware doesn’t agree with your main OS install!

This has been the case since El Capitan or thereabouts, and I don’t see it mentioned nearly enough.

I just ran into that myself. The beta installed some new firmware. After reverting to Sonoma, I had some weird crashes that I never experienced before. I used another mac I had laying around and "revived" my M3 Pro and now it has the sonoma Firmware again. Its possible, just you need another mac around, which a lot of people probably don't have.

 

[flowrider]

Unless you have another backup disc with a working OS. the answer is absolutely not.

Lou

 

[toru173]

I just ran into that myself. The beta installed some new firmware. After reverting to Sonoma, I had some weird crashes that I never experienced before. I used another mac I had laying around and "revived" my M3 Pro and now it has the sonoma Firmware again. Its possible, just you need another mac around, which a lot of people probably don't have.

Interesting! I know restoring a Mac is a way to replace the existing OS image. I’m talking about lower level stuff though - things like wifi firmware.

 

[M3Stang]

Interesting! I know restoring a Mac is a way to replace the existing OS image. I’m talking about lower level stuff though - things like wifi firmware.

I believe that’s what I did. With Apple Configurator, you can either “revive” or “restore”. Restore updates the firmware to whatever the current release branch is, and also wipes the drive and installs the newest prd os. A revive just does the firmware. I did a revive and my “system firmware version” is now the same as my iBoot version. It’s the current Sonoma one. That’s probably the one that handles Wi-Fi, track pad and all that. I followed this and the “revive” section.

How to revive or restore Mac firmware - Apple Support

Rarely, a Mac with Apple silicon or the Apple T2 Security Chip might stop responding and need to be revived or restored by another Mac.

support.apple.com

 

[toru173]

Most of my firmware level work has been done on Intel Macs. Time to bust out my investigative hat again 🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♂️

 

[watagan]

Most of my firmware level work has been done on Intel Macs. Time to bust out my investigative hat again 🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♂️🕵️‍♂️

On Intel here so can't speak for M* hardware but I suspect this might work. If you want to try the full beta experience without the slowness of external drives and without the risk of blowing away your current system just create a new APFS volume group, install Sequoia into that and test it by simply changing your startup disk. In my case I installed Sonoma onto the new volume group first then updated to Sequoia to see how the usual upgrade sequence went. I will test future betas and releases this way until I'm confident enough to update Sonoma currently installed in the Macintosh HD group.

 

[M3Stang]

On Intel here so can't speak for M* hardware but I suspect this might work. If you want to try the full beta experience without the slowness of external drives and without the risk of blowing away your current system just create a new APFS volume group, install Sequoia into that and test it by simply changing your startup disk. In my case I installed Sonoma onto the new volume group first then updated to Sequoia to see how the usual upgrade sequence went. I will test future betas and releases this way until I'm confident enough to update Sonoma currently installed in the Macintosh HD group.

I also had an installation on an external drive. That updates the firmware too. I assume something about the firmware needs to be newer for the new OS to work on that computer regardless of the running source. You can see this on this site about where a firmware version is higher than it should be. (What I experienced)

Which firmware should your Mac be using? (version 8)

This article lists the firmware versions of Macs that have been successfully upgraded to run macOS 14.5 Sonoma. Apple doesn’t provide an official list of the current firmware versions which s…

eclecticlight.co

 

[TheodoreCruz8]

if you use intel at school I would upgrade. if you use genuine apple at home I wouldn't.

 

[VitoBotta]

Somehow I got too excited after watching the keynote and rushed to upgrade my iPhone to iOS 18 and my main mac, a MacBook Pro M3 Pro which is my daily driver, to Sequoia. I kinda regret it now not because I am having problems with them, actually so far I have found none, but because it's anyway a risk and I feel stupid for upgrading my main devices to developer betas... I hope everything goes well but I won't fall into this trap next time.

 

[corieallen]

To be clear, I am not a developer. I've installed betas on every one of my Macs and iPhones with the exception of Big Sur. BUT FIRST... I check forums to see if the apps and features that I use are functioning well. I usually wait for the second beta, but being able to use iCloud in a VM is enticing. All my work is done in a separate VM for each employer (I have 2). I use a few apps from the App Store so this is a compelling feature for me. I'm still trying to get this new feature to work 😂.

Don't let these rational people discourage you. Back up your data and try the beta over the weekend IF you can afford to have downtime. Use an external drive if you're scared 🫣. The worst that could happen is that you waste hours on Sunday restoring Sonoma.

 

[chmania]

Posting to pre-empt the inevitable slew of posts asking it it's safe to install the beta on your ONLY Mac. The answer is always no and should always be no. There's always the risk to your data, incompatible apps, and not being able to roll back in case of problems.

Even with a backup, you might not be able to roll back, or it might hose your machine and then you will have to visit an Apple Store and if you depend on that Mac, then you will be in trouble.

Don't do it.

Well, if you don't trust Apple engineers to a good job, then of course, you shouldn't.
If you don't feel like sending feedback to Apple, then of course, you shouldn't.