Nuke & Pave MBA - help please

Tech Support
1

My home MBA (2013) is getting sluggish…yeah after 5 years of (not so heavy) usage what would I expect, right? :grinning:

I’d like to nuke and pave and install from scratch (I’m using my iPad a lot, so no need for a new laptop…though the Mac mini is smilling at me and I’m trying to resist the temptation — not easy after the last Connected episode!!)

Anyway, could anyone detail the steps or point me to a guide so I do a clean install? Never done it before and wouldn’t like to mess with it.

Going to back up first of course.

Thanks!!!

2

This checklist is very handy. Bit old, but still relevant.

http://www.asianefficiency.com/technology/format-mac-checklist/

3 Likes
3

Apple’s support document can walk you through it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

1 Like
4

Unless I’m missing something, the tech support article just tells you how to replace macOS. Since you’ve had your machine for 5 years I assume you’ve accumulated a substantial amount of apps and data. Therefore I recommend the checklist.

You can recover your current apps and data from a backup, however I recommend reinstalling your apps fresh wherever possible.

5

This is what I intend to do indeed. Good opportunity to let go apps that I’m not using anymore!!

6

After an upgrade of my OS to Big Sur a month ago, I’m still having some issues so I decided I have to do a full nuke and pave. I have everything backed up but finding this thread to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and sure enough, I didn’t think of a bunch of things. For example, Alfred snippets, Apple keyboard shortcuts, Hazel rules (I don’t have many).

So the link to asianefficiency which I totally forgot about will make this go a lot smoother.

Thanks!