Upgrade El Capitan To Sierra

macOS Big Sur elevates the most advanced desktop operating system in the world to a new level of power and beauty. Experience Mac to the fullest with a refined new design. Enjoy the biggest Safari update ever. Discover new features for Maps and Messages. Get even more transparency around your privacy.

Here we show you how to upgrade to Mac OS X High Sierra. This covers all the steps you need to do the upgrade.If you can't find High Sierra in the Mac App St. If your current operating system is OS X Lion (10.7), you can skip a few versions, and upgrade directly to macOS High Sierra. To upgrade to Sierra from, say, Mavericks, you’ll have to consequently upgrade to Yosemite and then to El Capitan first. Check Your macOS for Sierra Compatibility These OS versions can upgrade to Sierra. Hi all, I have a relativley new Macbook Air (basic model) that came with El Capitan, and I now wonder if I can expect to upgrade to Sierra without any hassle? I don't really need Sierra, but thinking it might be nice with Siri and some of the other new features. This is my first Mac, and coming. Here’s how to upgrade from El Capitan to Sierra. Download High Sierra from the App Store. High Sierra is available for download from the App Store.

Chances are, your Mac can run macOS Big Sur

The following models are supported:

MacBook (2015 or later)
MacBook Air (2013 or later)
MacBook Pro (Late 2013 or later)
Mac mini (2014 or later)
iMac (2014 or later)
iMac Pro (2017 or later)
Mac Pro (2013 or later)

To see which model you have, click the Apple icon in your menu bar and choose About This Mac.

Make sure you’re ready to upgrade.

Before you upgrade, we recommend that you back up your Mac. If your Mac is running OS X Mavericks 10.9 or later, you can upgrade directly to macOS Big Sur. You’ll need the following:

OS X 10.9 or later
4GB of memory
35.5GB available storage on macOS Sierra or later*
Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; charges may apply.

Upgrading is free and easy

Upgrading from macOS Catalina 10.15 or Mojave 10.14?

Go to Software Update in System Preferences to find macOS Big Sur. Click Upgrade Now and follow the onscreen instructions.

Upgrading from an older version of macOS?

If you’re running any release from macOS 10.13 to 10.9, you can upgrade to macOS Big Sur from the App Store. If you’re running Mountain Lion 10.8, you will need to upgrade to El Capitan 10.11 first.

OS X 10.9 or later
4GB of memory
35.5GB available storage on macOS Sierra or later*

Cannot Upgrade El Capitan To Sierra

Some features require an Apple ID; terms apply.
Some features require a compatible Internet service provider; charges may apply.

For details about your Mac model, click the Apple icon at the top left of your screen and choose About This Mac. These Mac models are compatible with macOS Big Sur:

MacBook (2015 or later)
MacBook Air (2013 or later)
MacBook Pro (Late 2013 or later)
Mac mini (2014 or later)

iMac (2014 or later)
iMac Pro (2017 or later)
Mac Pro (2013 or later)

Siri

Requires a broadband Internet connection and microphone (built-in or external).

Hey Siri

Supported by the following Mac models:

MacBook Pro (2018 or later)
MacBook Air (2018 or later)
iMac Pro (2017 or later)

Dictation, Voice Control and Voice Memos

Requires a microphone (built-in or external).

Spotlight Suggestions

Requires a broadband Internet connection.

Gestures

Requires a Multi-Touch trackpad, Force Touch trackpad, Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse.

Force Touch gestures require a Force Touch trackpad.

VoiceOver gestures require a Multi-Touch trackpad, Force Touch trackpad or Magic Trackpad.

Photo Booth

Requires a FaceTime or iSight camera (built-in or external), or USB video class (UVC) camera.

FaceTime

Audio calls require a microphone (built-in or external) and broadband Internet connection.

Video calls require a built-in FaceTime camera, an iSight camera (built-in or external), or a USB video class (UVC) camera; and broadband Internet connection.

Apple TV

High dynamic range (HDR) video playback is supported by the following Mac models:

MacBook Pro (2018 or later)
iMac Pro (2017 or later)
Mac Pro (2019) with Pro Display XDR

Dolby Atmos soundtrack playback is supported by the following Mac models:

MacBook Air (2018 or later)
MacBook Pro (2018 or later)

How To Upgrade El Capitan To Sierra On Imac

Sidecar

Supported by the following Mac models:

MacBook (2016 or later)
MacBook Air (2018 or later)
MacBook Pro (2016 or later)
Mac mini (2018 or later)
iMac (late 2015 or later)
iMac Pro (2017 or later)
Mac Pro (2019)

Supported by all iPad models with Apple Pencil support:

12.9-inch iPad Pro
11-inch iPad Pro
10.5-inch iPad Pro
9.7-inch iPad Pro
iPad (6th generation or later)
iPad mini (5th generation)
iPad Air (3rd and 4th generation)

Continuity Camera

Requires an iPhone or iPad that supports iOS 12 or later.

Continuity Sketch and Continuity Markup

Requires an iPhone with iOS 13 or later or an iPad with iPadOS 13 or later.

Handoff

Requires an iPhone or iPad with a Lightning connector or with USB-C and iOS 8 or later.

Instant Hotspot

Requires an iPhone or iPad with cellular connectivity, a Lightning connector or USB-C, and iOS 8.1 or later. Requires Personal Hotspot service through your carrier.

Universal Clipboard

Requires an iPhone or iPad with a Lightning connector or with USB-C and iOS 10 or later.

Auto Unlock

Requires an Apple Watch with watchOS 3 or later or an iPhone 5 or later.

Approve with Apple Watch

Requires an Apple Watch with watchOS 6 or later or an iPhone 6s or later with iOS 13 or later.

Phone Calling

Requires an iPhone with iOS 8 or later and an activated carrier plan.

SMS

Requires an iPhone with iOS 8.1 or later and an activated carrier plan.

Home

Requires an iPhone with iOS 12 or later and a configured Home app.

AirDrop

AirDrop to iOS and iPadOS devices requires an iPhone or iPad with a Lightning connector or with USB-C and iOS 7 or later.

AirPlay

AirPlay Mirroring requires an Apple TV (2nd generation or later).

AirPlay for web video requires an Apple TV (2nd generation or later).

Peer-to-peer AirPlay requires a Mac (2012 or later) and an Apple TV (3rd generation rev A, model A1469 or later) with Apple TV software 7.0 or later.

Time Machine

Requires an external storage device (sold separately).

Maps electric vehicle routing

Requires an iPhone with iOS 14 and a compatible electric vehicle.

Maps number plate restrictions

Requires an iPhone running iOS 14 or an iPad running iPadOS 14.

Boot Camp

Allows Boot Camp installations of Windows 10 on supported Mac models.

Exchange Support

Requires Microsoft Office 365, Exchange 2016, Exchange 2013 or Exchange Server 2010. Installing the latest Service Packs is recommended.

Windows Migration

Supports OS X 10.7 or later and Windows 7 or later.

App Store

Available only to persons aged 13 or older in the US and many other countries and regions.

Photos

The improved Retouch tool is supported on the following Mac models:

MacBook Pro (15-inch and 16-inch models) introduced in 2016 or later
iMac (Retina 5K models) introduced in 2014 or later
iMac (Retina 4K models) introduced in 2017 or later
iMac Pro (2017 or later)
Mac Pro introduced in 2013 or later

Apple Books
Apple News
App Store
Automator
Calculator
Calendar
Chess
Contacts
Dictionary
DVD Player
FaceTime
Find My
Font Book
Home
Image Capture
Launchpad
Mail
Maps

Messages
Mission Control
Music
Notes
Photo Booth
Photos
Podcasts
Preview
QuickTime Player
Reminders
Safari
Siri
Stickies
Stocks
System Preferences
TextEdit
Time Machine
TV
Voice Memos

Activity Monitor
AirPort Utility
Audio MIDI Setup
Bluetooth File Exchange
Boot Camp Assistant
ColorSync Utility
Console
Digital Color Meter
Disk Utility

Grapher
Keychain Access
Migration Assistant
Screenshot
Screen Time
Script Editor
Sidecar
System Information
Terminal
VoiceOver Utility

Arabic
Catalan
Croatian
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong)
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English (Australia)
English (UK)
English (US)
Finnish
French
French (Canada)
German
Greek
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian

Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Malay
Norwegian
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Portuguese
Romanian
Russian
Slovak
Spanish
Spanish (Latin America)
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Vietnamese

macOS Sierra is here, but are you ready? OS upgrades offer the thrill of new features, better performance and bug fixes, but they can come at a price — your time and potentially your productivity. If you upgrade your OS only to discover that a critical third-party application or peripheral doesn't work right, you could be really lost when you discover that it's impossible to downgrade to a previous OS. Unless, that is, you have a complete, bootable backup of your Mac, pre-Sierra.

Make your bootable backup before upgrading

Get a backup disk. If you need advice, we offer some here in CCC's documentation
Download CCC and fire it up
Choose your startup disk from the Source selector
Choose your backup volume in the Destination selector
Click the Clone button
Sit back and watch the fastest cloning tool on Earth
Detach your backup disk from your Mac and set it aside for a couple days. At least initially, you don't want the backup disk to be upgraded automatically by a scheduled backup task.

Once your clone is finished, test that your backup drive is bootable by selecting the backup disk as your startup disk in System Preferences and then restarting. Don't forget to change your startup disk back and restart after you test!

Upgrade to Sierra

Download Sierra from the App Store and apply the upgrade.

Install! Play! And make sure everything is working...

Take some time to run the applications that are most important to you. If, after a week or so you decide that everything is copacetic and you are ready to commit to the new operating system, fire up CCC and re-run the backup task with the same settings — CCC will update your backup volume with only the items that have changed since your last backup. This is an important step — once the backup task has completed, the operating system on your backup disk will match the source, and you will no longer be able to use the backup to downgrade to the previous OS.

If you have to downgrade, here's what you need to do

Keep in mind that when you open an Apple application on Sierra (e.g. Mail or Calendar), those applications will immediately and irreversibly upgrade the user data for those applications. You cannot simply reinstall El Capitan (for example), then go about your day with the upgraded user data; the El Capitan versions of those Apple applications can't use the upgraded data. If you need to downgrade to a previous OS, it is imperative that you have a complete, bootable backup of your Mac as it was prior to the upgrade.

To effectively restore everything back to a previous version of the OS, do the following:

Attach your CCC backup disk to your Mac
Open the Startup Disk preference pane in the System Preferences application
Choose your backup volume as the startup disk, then click on the Restart button
Ah yes, there's your old Mac, everything in order! If you need to get real work done, go right ahead. Anything you modify on the backup disk will be restored later.
Launch CCC
Select your backup volume from the source selector
Select your Sierra volume from the destination selector
Stick with the default settings — SafetyNet On
Click the Clone button

When the restore process has completed, reset your startup disk in the System Preferences application and restart your Mac. You'll be back to your previous OS in no time! It'll be like putting on an old, comfortable pair of shoes that were just sitting there in the back of your closet, waiting for you to come home.

Note: If you created or modified any documents while the system was running Sierra, the older versions of your files will be restored. You can retrieve your more-recently-created documents from the _CCC SafetyNet folder at the root of your startup disk. Unfortunately, your personal data created by Apple applications (e.g. Calendar, AddressBook, Mail, Photos, etc.) while using the newer OS will be incompatible with an older OS, so it is not possible to restore that information. But you can retrieve specific documents created in other applications.