There’s 1 True Recovery, Fallback Recovery and one other recovery mode. Disambiguation, explanation and how this changed in macOS 11.4.
1 True Recovery
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.
How changing a volume’s boot policy can let you boot in older macOS, and update, if you wish. For anyone who uses external bootable disks with an M1 Mac.
If you’re considering getting an M1 Mac, or already have one, this new book is an essential guide and reference.
Although generally reliable in normal macOS and in Recovery, First Aid sometimes runs into problems with external bootable disks.
You may encounter this when trying to boot into Fallback Recovery Mode. Currently it doesn’t appear to be fully functional, and doesn’t help.
Created when you update macOS, its Fallback Recovery OS is made from the previous Recovery OS. Here’s how to check whether it’s available on your M1 Mac.
macOS updates sometimes don’t work out right. What can you do to revert to the previous release? Did I hear you mention snapshots?
Intel Macs have 14 different startup modes and variations, each engaged using different key combinations. One True Recovery replaces those with a single action and GUI with help. It’s a big step forward.
Unlike Intel Macs, M1 models always start booting from internal SSD, and can only offer full Recovery from there too. This has benefits, and some drawbacks too.
The Eclectic Light Company 