Upgrading from El Capitan to Mojave

How to upgrade to macOS Mojave

1. Perform a Time Machine backup on your El Capitan system to a physically attached drive. Set that drive aside, and do not reuse it for Mojave. This will be your failsafe restore drive. Put a label on it as El Capitan final backup.
2. Boot into Recovery mode and run Disk Utility First Aid on your El Capitan boot drive. Reboot normally.
3. For your printer/scanner models, visit the respective vendor sites and check for macOS 10.14 (Mojave) driver compatibility. Once Mojave is installed, you will need to download and install these drivers, then reset the Print System.
4. For any third-party software products, verify that current versions are compatible with macOS Mojave from the respective vendor sites. You can also check on RoaringApps.
   1. Retired applications (e.g. Adobe CS6 and older, Office 2008/2011 for Mac, etc.) will either not work properly or not at all.
5. Now, download Mojave 10.14.6 from the Mac App Store (it will reside in your /Applications folder).
   1. It will offer to continue the upgrade.
      1. If you do not want to build a bootable USB stick (16 GB), then just continue the upgrade. The installer will be automatically removed after the upgrade.
      2. If you do want to build a bootable USB stick, then cancel the upgrade.
      3. Follow the steps for Mojave in Apple's How to create a bootable installer for macOS
      4. Now, you can double-click on the Mojave installer to do the upgrade, and keep the bootable USB stick in reserve, or you can reboot the Mac with the option key, and choose the bootable USB installer to perform a clean install.
   2. Connect an unused external Time Machine drive (HFS+ journal) to perform a full backup of the Mojave installation.

dancliffordctfc wrote:

....I have been thinking about upgrading to Mojave for some time but I have been putting it off as I am worried it will affect the performance of my Mac and start up time. .....

I think the bigger concern would be if any of your third party apps

are compatible, and if not, do they have updates for compatibility

or would they require paid upgrades to be compatible and your

willingness to pay for them if needed.

Just do the upgrade. Worth the time and another one is coming in September.

No need for a clean install.

Open the App Store, sign in and download the installer. Back it up before running it as the installer self deletes once run.