How to create a recovery partition in macOS

macOS allows you to create a recovery partition that is useful for system troubleshooting and reinstallation. A recovery partition provides tools to restore your system, reinstall macOS, or perform disk repairs. This guide explains how to manually create a recovery partition on your Mac.

To create a recovery partition, you need a macOS installer and enough free space on your drive. The process involves creating a new partition and installing macOS onto it. This will automatically create a recovery partition that you can use in case of system issues.

The steps outlined below will guide you through the process. Make sure to follow each step carefully to ensure the recovery partition is created correctly.

Steps to create a recovery partition in macOS:

  1. Download the macOS installer from the App Store.
  2. Connect a USB drive if you plan to use it as installation media.
  3. Open Terminal from the Applications > Utilities folder.
  4. Use the createinstallmedia command to create a bootable installer on the USB drive.
  5. Restart your Mac and boot from the USB drive by holding down the Option key during startup.
  6. Select the Disk Utility option from the macOS Utilities menu.
  7. Choose your main hard drive and create a new partition for the recovery partition.
  8. Install macOS onto the new partition. This will create the recovery partition automatically.
  9. Reboot your system once the installation is complete.
  10. To verify, restart your Mac and hold down the Command and R keys to see if the recovery partition is accessible.