downgrading from ventura to monterey

Hey canazimbo!

Sorry to hear that, well it’s worked for me on M1 erasing via Recovery Assistant, then you’re asked to Authorize or Deauthorize, then given the prompt to Exit To Recovery where you can Reinstall Monterey, has your Mac ever had Monterey on it? But that was a while ago, things change, if Apple wants it to be available it will, if not, it won’t. I think, depending on your security settings, (And if this Mac was ever on Monterey), you maybe able to add a new Volume to your Mac, download Monterey and install it on the new volume, not sure if that can still be done, but you can most definitely install Monterey on an external drive and boot up from that drive if you need to as well.

How to download macOS - Apple Support

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/03/how-to-boot-an-apple-silicon-mac-from-an-external-drive

Your security settings may have to be adjusted, anyhow, hope you figure something out!

Hey there! Good question!

If you do need to downgrade on an M1:

First off, Monterey has to have been on this Mac before at some point, you can downgrade only to the OS versions it shipped with, and no previous OS version.

Note that you do have to erase your Mac to do this.

First, make sure you follow these steps:

What to do before you sell, give away, or trade in your Mac - Apple Support

But since you have no data to save, I would just make sure to sign any user accounts out of their Apple ID’s to ensure Find My isn’t enabled, and Purchase authorizations and iMessage/FaceTime authorizations are disabled.

Next, shut down your Mac, then press and hold the power button until you see startup options appear.

Click Options > Continue, if/when asked to choose a user, on the top menu, choose Recovery Assistant > Erase Mac > Erase……After a reboot you may or may not be asked to Activate Mac, and/or Exit To Recovery, you can do both.

If your Mac boots to a folder and a question mark…..shut down, press and hold power again to get to Startup options > Options > Continue.

Once in Recovery Mode, make sure you’re connected to a network and choose Reinstall Mac OS.

With previous Macs, and OS’, there were different startup options to get to either the current, latest, or earliest possible OS.

With M1 and later, I believe recovery mode should default to the previous OS version to allow a downgrade. So once reinstalled, you can just set it up again. Hope that helps!

In the follow link are tow very different types of computer involved in the downgrade from Ventura to Monterey.

One method is specifically for Apple Silicon Computers and the other is for Intel Based Computers.

Please use the version specific to your computers type of computer

As alway, make at least two TM Backups each to separate drives Before proceeding

Sorry, only now realized forgot to include the link in earlier posting

https://www.howtoisolve.com/downgrade-macos-ventura-to-macos-monterey/

No worries canazimbo, I hope you sort everything out though! I think P. Phillips supplied a super helpful link as well!

When time permits, do keep use posted on the outcome.

Should addition assistance be needed, between @DiZoE and self P.Phillips, we are here to help.

👍