How to use an M1 Mac’s Recovery system to boot in Safe mode, boot from another disk, and use its other important features. With a map.
1 True Recovery
Most users won’t have noticed, but Recovery now works quite differently on M1 series Macs than it did in Big Sur. Here’s a detailed explanation of the changes.
Soon M1 Macs will be able to boot from two major versions of macOS, and with new models coming, users are going to have more complex systems. How will Recovery cope?
Recovering from one regular panic should be straightforward. But what if it’s a boot loop, in which your Mac tries to start up, panics, restarts, in an endless loop? Don’t panic: here are the solutions.
Memory, support for multiple external displays, bootable external disks, macOS updates, kernel panics, more ports, and more choice of macOS to install are on my list.
Terminal in Recovery on an M1 Mac has access to many valuable command tools, including USB-C diagnostics,options otherwise unavailable in csrutil, and more.
Recovery on an M1 Mac runs from its own container, which should improve its robustness. It has one simple entry point, and offers a full range of facilities in an integrated environment. It’s a big step forward.
macOS 11.4 brought major changes to the way M1 Macs handle external bootable disks. This explains how this works during the boot process.
There’s 1 True Recovery, Fallback Recovery and one other recovery mode. Disambiguation, explanation and how this changed in macOS 11.4.
How an M1 Mac can start up from an external bootable disk, and how that can fail. All about boot security policy, and how that’s applied.
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