Where can I find the macOS Sequoia for download?

FWIW, I installed Sequoia on three different Macs; iMac M3, MacBook Air M1, iMac Pro through Software Update without any issue. Other contributors here reported no issues either. If you are having an issue it's a problem local to your Mac.

For what it's worth I haven’t had the need to reinstall macOS since 2013. That’s 11 years. I don’t know what your problems are but the voodoo incantations of clean installs is long gone. A colleague/friend of mine used to clean install Windows on his PC twice a year. Go figure.

lkrupp wrote:

For what it's worth I haven’t had the need to reinstall macOS since 2013. That’s 11 years. I don’t know what your problems are but the voodoo incantations of clean installs is long gone.

I think I had to do it once with Mac OS X. I also gave up clean installs ages ago.

lkrupp wrote:

For what it's worth I haven’t had the need to reinstall macOS since 2013. That’s 11 years. I don’t know what your problems are but the voodoo incantations of clean installs is long gone.

then

IdrisSeabright wrote:

I think I had to do it once with Mac OS X. I also gave up clean installs ages ago.

I haven't had do to a clean install in over 18 years and I've migrated to 6 different Mac's during that time.

This is true.

My 2018 Intel Mac mini did not have a single issue going to Sequoia.

The Firewall on wife's 2020 M1 Mac mini was blocking Safari, but that was an easy fix.

It seems like third-party app's and other junk-ware are the worst offenders, but that's typical for any macOS update and upgrade.

Remember the days of System 9 when extensions had to be loaded in a certain order before they all work? There was even a very popular app called Conflict Catcher that tried to sort everything out beforehand to avoid issues.

Third party apps, extensions, enhancers, anti-virus have always been the biggest cause of issues for users. Some developers try to get around Apple’s security protections to get their little jewels to work, often with disastrous results for inexperienced users.

lkrupp wrote:

Remember the days of System 9 when extensions had to be loaded in a certain order before they all work? There was even a very popular app called Conflict Catcher that tried to sort everything out beforehand to avoid issues.

Oh, wow! Yes. Those were the days. Conflict Catcher was a lifesaver. Before that, you had to disable half, test, and so forth. It took forever.

Smidge Frimon wrote:

Where do you find a link like that? I'm trying to become a better Mac resource and I don't necessarily want to have to ask all the time. :)

As I mentioned in my post, the link is from the App Store.

[Edited by Moderator]

MadanKG wrote:

Where can I find the macOS Sequoia for download?

As explained in the previous posts, in the App Store. You do have to have a compatible Mac.

macOS Sequoia is compatible with these computers - Apple Support

Hello,

I went through such issues with an iMac Intel 2020.

Several things in my case could prevent the install of most recent macoses on such hardware.

First, intensive use of a Fusion Drive can bring to failing SSD just after two years (S.M.A.R.T. status failing due to too much swapping) then no more macos update is possible.

You need to break the Fusion Drive if you want to update an iMac with failing Fusion SSD. It makes it very difficult to install recent macoses.

APFS is mandatory with recent macoses but was not supported yet under the iMac preinstalled macos, so it can be a hard time to manage an installation without installing first a HFS+ compatible macOS.

Also, recent macoses do not work properly without an SSD, it makes them slow and it increases the risk of disk issues.

An installed macOS 13 is required prior to the Sequoia installation but the internet recovery doesn’t seem to take this into account, probably depending on the last once installed program (maybe memorized in PRAM?). In my case it took days before internet recovery starts under Mojave. Then I needed to update to at least 10.13 in order to be able to install 10.15.

I’d say that both the migration of the macOS File System and the CPU was quite a challenge for Apple (reminder of PowerPC to Intel by the way) and that there are some missing «intelligence» which could have eased users’ life.

Hi AlWeir!

Once the installation process is done, how can I remove the installer app that was created?

It doesn’t get deleted using AppZapper, and dragging it to the trash doesn’t work either...

Is there any command or code to force the uninstallation or deletion of the app?

fced wrote:

It is alway better to do a clean install of a system, and may be create a bootable partition/disk...

For most people, that's overkill. I haven't done a clean install in at least a decade. There are certainly people for whom it may make more sense but not the average user.

IdrisSeabright wrote:

fced wrote:

It is alway better to do a clean install of a system, and may be create a bootable partition/disk...

For most people, that's overkill. I haven't done a clean install in at least a decade. There are certainly people for whom it may make more sense but not the average user.

Agree 👍 somewhat of an over kill

Last Clean Installation I did was Pre Apple Silicon days on an older Intel machine

When you could , under special conditiona, used the Scorched Earth Method 

PRP_53 wrote:

Agree 👍 somewhat of an over kill

Last Clean Installation I did was Pre Apple Silicon days on an older Intel machine

I had a virus on my Mac when using System 7 (though rare, they did exist then!) I think I had to do it then. If I recall, when we still got installation disks, there was a "clean install option." I may have used that for a while. But once things were download-only, it seemed like far too much effort for far too little return. At least for me.

When you could , under special conditiona, used the Scorched Earth Method 

Or my favorite expression, "Nuke and pave."

The last virus I saw was when I used a MS Windows computers running Windows XP or maybe Windows '98, Me

The Nuke and Pave / Scorched Earth is a thing of the past since the advent of Erase All content and setting adopted from iOS

The lines between iOS and macOS in some ways are good and other ways less so