How to Upgrade macOS Big Sur and Install Monterey

After a long wait, the macOS Monterey is out now, and Apple started rolling out the update to all the supported devices. So if you are on the macOS Big Sur and have a supported device, go ahead, and you can download and install the new macOS Monterey on your system.

The macOS Monterey was announced a few months back and was available for beta testing. Finally, on October 25th, Apple officially released the final stable version and was made available for all the users.

How to install MacOS Monterey

If you are on version 11.6, Big Sur, you can download and install the update from the system update itself.

Goto the System preferences and click on the Software Update to check the update.

If the update is available for your system, you will get the notification to upgrade your Mac machine.

The latest version of macOS Monterey is available with version 12.0.1, 12.13 GB in size.

Once you see the update, click the Upgrade Now button and go ahead to download it. It will take some time, depending on your internet connection speed. Once completed, the installer will apply the update automatically, and your macOS Big Sur gets upgraded to macOS Monterey.

macOS-Monterey-Update-Available

The whole process can take some time, and your system will restart multiple times during the process. However, the installer will update your system to the whole new MacOS Monterey once completed.

macOS-Monterey-Installer

List of supported devices for the MacOS Monterey

Apple has already released the list of supported devices compatible with the new macOS Monterey. The list includes the following devices.

  • MacBook – 2016 and later
  • MacBook Air – 2015 and later
  • MacBook Pro – 2015 and later
  • Mac Pro – 2014 and later
  • Mac Mini – 2015 and later
  • iMac – 2016 and later
  • iMac Pro – 2017 and later

macOS-Monterey-Updated

Why i am not able to install the new MacOS

If you cannot find the update from your software update section, then most probably, the update was not made available to your system or even not available in your region.

To ensure everything is going fine, check the following things before starting the update.

  • Make sure that your device is a compatible one, refer the list provided above.
  • Make sure that your system is connected to a stable internet connection.
  • Your Mac machine should be on the latest version, which is macOS Big Sur 11.6.
  • Make sure that your system time is correct and should be same as your regional time.

If the above things are correct, you will find the update and install them without any issue.

Things to remember before installing the macOS Monterey

Since we are updating the system using the official updater, all the data will be kept safe, and there will be no data loss issue. However, as a precaution, always recommended to backup the system to avoid losing valuable data if something goes wrong.

We mentioned that the whole update is 12GB in size. So, make sure you have enough data plan and have a stable internet connection.

After the download, the whole installation process can take about 30 minutes. So, only do the update when you are not in your work.

Can we install the macOS Monterey on unsupported devices

There is some workaround available to install the latest macOS Monterey on unsupported apple devices. However, we recommend waiting for some more days to get a better workaround.

Since the latest version was released a few days back, we can only get the best workaround after a few more days of experiments. Hence, better to wait for a few more days.

However, if you are still on an older version and waiting to upgrade to big sur, don’t wait further. Instead, go ahead and upgrade directly to Mac OS Monterey.

Update: Latest version of Mac OS Monterey 12.2 was released in the last week of January 2022 and is available for public download.

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