


If your startup disk is not formatted as APFS, your best option is to install Catalina on external drive. You can check the format of your startup drive by clicking Launchpad > Disk Utility. The exception is hard disks or Fusion drives running High Sierra.

If your Mac is running High Sierra or Mojave, its startup disk is probably formatted as APFS. A Mac that’s capable of running Catalina.Also, the full version is available on the Mac App Store. First, it was available to Apple developers only. You might find that it frees up tens of gigabytes of space. You can download it here, so I recommend giving it a try. You can either let it scan your whole Mac or focus on specifics like Photos, cache files, Launch agents, or large and old files you no longer need to access regularly. And it makes removing junk files easy, too. It makes identifying what’s taking up all your disk space really easy, thanks to its System Junk tool. It’s not often that I recommend specific applications, but for this purpose, I’m a big fan of CleanMyMac X. We’re going to install Catalina on your main startup disk (yes, you don’t need an external disk!), so the more space you have available, the better. The other thing you should do is clear out the junk on your Mac. It will slow your Mac down but will also force Catalina to ask for permission before it can access encrypted files and folders. You should also consider turning on FileVault. Just make sure you have a backup of your entire Mac before you download macOS Catalina. You can use Time Machine or any other backup tool. Once installed, macOS Catalina will have access to all your files and folders, so back up your Mac just in case it damages them. Here’s how to dual boot macOS Mojave and macOS Catalina. One way you can do that is to create a dual boot system, so you can still boot into Mojave or whatever macOS you’re currently running when you need to. However, as it’s beta software, it comes with a health warning, and you should take precautions when testing it. If you’re excited about the launch of macOS Catalina and want to try out all the new features for yourself, you can download the public beta and give it a go. But to help you do it all by yourself, we’ve gathered our best ideas and solutions below.įeatures described in this article refer to the MacPaw site version of CleanMyMac X. So here’s a tip for you: Download CleanMyMac to quickly solve some of the issues mentioned in this article.
