How to Install MacOS Monterey on a Mac

macOS Monterey is here, complete with some nice new features like Live Text which allows you to select text in images, the inclusion of Shortcuts app on Mac, improvements to Safari, Focus modes, the ability to use a Mac as an AirPlay receiver, and a variety of general refinements to the Mac operating system.

If you’re ready to install and upgraded to macOS Monterey, we’ll walk through the steps for installing macOS Monterey onto a Mac. The approach we’ll cover in this article will be upgrading a prior macOS release to macOS Monterey.

Before beginning, be sure you have at least 25GB of free storage available on the Mac, as MacOS Monterey requires enough space to download the installer, as well as complete the install. The installer will delete itself after it’s done, so that will free up some storage when complete. You’ll also want to make sure the Mac is compatible with macOS Monterey, which is basically any 2015 or later MacBook Pro, iMac, MacBook, or MacBook Air, and Mac Pro models from 2013 and later.

If you haven’t done so yet, you’ll want to be sure you update your apps and backup the Mac, all part of the general preparation process for a major new system software update like Monterey.

How to Install macOS Monterey on a Mac by Upgrading

Here’s how to upgrade a Mac to macOS Monterey:

1. Complete a full backup of the Mac with Time Machine or your backup approach of choice – do not skip this, backups ensure that your data is protected in the event something goes wrong
2. Go to the  Apple menu and choose “System Preferences”
3. Select “Software Update” preference panel, then choose to “Upgrade Now” when macOS Monterey shows as available (if it doesn’t show as available for some reason, you can get it from the App Store or download here)



4. Let macOS Monterey download, when finished downloading the installer will launch itself automatically



5. Choose Continue, then agree to the terms of service (I’m sure you’ll read it all carefully like we all do)



6. Select “Macintosh HD”, or the desired destination drive for macOS Monterey, then choose “Continue” again



7. MacOS Monterey will begin installing, the installation will take a while at this progress screen – do not interrupt this process



8. The Mac will eventually boot to a black screen with a white  Apple logo and a progress bar, again let this process complete, and it may take a while



9. When finished, the Mac will boot up as normal and back to your Mac desktop, now running macOS Monterey

There you go, you’re now running macOS Monterey!

And if you aren’t quite ready for macOS Monterey yet, remember that you can continue to install macOS Big Sur and Catalina updates without installing macOS Monterey, but they will be limited to mostly security fixes from here out.

Did you install macOS Monterey? How did it go? Let us know your experiences in the comments.