Booting into Recovery Mode on Mac mini 2018

There comes a time in a Mac user’s life where it’s necessary to boot your new Mac into Recovery mode to run diagnostics and/or repair a drive. For me, it was curiosity.

Recovery mode allows your Mac to run a stripped down version of the OS, located on a separate hidden partition, with every modern Mac that ships. Using the 2018 Mac mini, the traditional method (holding down Command-R immediately after the Mac reboots) didn’t work.

Thankfully, there is a method – which involves the use of the Terminal. Credit to Giles P. Croft on Twitter for sharing his solution.

Boot to recovery drive:

sudo nvram “recovery-boot-mode=unused”

Boot to safe mode:

sudo nvram boot-args=”-x”

Boot back to normal:

sudo nvram boot-args=””

Here’s how to do it.

1. Launch the Terminal.
2. Type in: sudo nvram “recovery-boot-mode=unused”
3. Type in: sudo shutdown -r now (this will reboot your Mac into the Recovery drive)
4. You’ll boot to your Recovery drive*
5. When you’re finished, open the Terminal from the menu.
6. Type in: nvram boot-args=””
7. Restart your Mac and you’ll boot back to your main drive

*If you have an eGPU connected to your Mac mini, make sure that you are plugging a display directly into your Mac mini. Otherwise, you’ll see the dark void known as a blank screen when you boot to the Recovery partition.

I’ve tested the commands above and they work flawlessly on my Mac mini.

-Krishna

Krishna February 11, 2019 2018 Mac mini, macOS, recovery mode, terminal tricks