How to Boot to Internet Recovery, Recovery Partition or Diagnostics from inside macOS.
UPDATE 01/25/21 – Martin Nobel @martinnobel_ – If you want to make an Intel Mac boot into the Startup Manager automatically, type into terminal: “Sudo nvram manufacturing-enter-picker=true”
This means that we can boot to almost every single recovery mode EXCEPT for Internet Recovery!
When an undocumented macOS command or option is discovered, the MacAdmin community gets pretty excited. This is one of those times, as a new nvram key and value was uncovered over the weekend.
If you need to boot to Internet Recovery, you first need to remember the Mac Boot Up Keyboard Combination. Can you remember all of them? I can’t and I work on this stuff every day! Below is the complete list Mac Startup Key Combinations. The second article adds two additional keyboard combinations bringing the total to twelve! The first one will “Reinstall the macOS that came with your Mac, or the closest version still available.” The second command will “Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.”
Apple Document – Mac startup key combinations https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201255
Apple Document – macOS Recovery installs different versions of macOS https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904
Undocumented command found that allows you to boot almost all available recovery options from macOS.
Over the weekend Tim Perfitt (founder and CEO of Twocanoes Software, Inc) tweeted this out to his followers.
Tim found an undocumented nvram command that you could use to boot your Mac to the Recovery Partition from macOS! From there, he had an idea to create an open source app that would allow you to boot to the Recovery Partition without knowing the exact command.
Someone found additional nvram keys and values!
I replied to Tim’s tweet letting him know that I put in an Apple Enterprise Support ticket to see if we could uncover if an Internet Recovery key existed. Before I could hear back from support, someone found and sent the new key internet-recovery-mode over to Tim. He then improved the app allowing you to boot into four different modes!
Nvram Keys and Values
The commands that we needed are set with two different keys and four different values.
The new values and keys are
recovery-boot-mode= Local Recovery Partition ValueunusedBoot to Recovery Partition
internet-recovery-mode= Internet Recovery ValueRecoveryModeNetworkInternet Recovery (Shift-Option-⌘-R)RecoveryModeDiskRecovery Partition (⌘- R)DiagsModeDiskBoot to Local Apple Hardware Diagnostic (D)DiagsModeNetworkBoot to Internet/AST Diagnostic (Option-D)
Let’s put it all together, keep in mind you must run the nvram as an administrator.
sudo nvram internet-recovery-mode=RecoveryModeNetwork
sudo reboot
Your Mac will immediately reboot and start up in Internet Recovery Mode.
Compatibility, Caveats and Requirements
UPDATE 01/27/20
I tested the above commands with the following hardware and OS versions.
- 2018 T2 15″ MacBook Pro = 10.15.3 Beta 2
- 2016 13″ MacBook Pro = 10.14.6
- 2010 13″ MacBook Air = 10.13.6
This should confirm that the command works from 10.13.6-10.15.3 and on Mac Hardware from 2010-2019.
Network Requirements (For Internet Boot Options)
- Wired Ethernet Connection
- Wifi = Any WPA2 saved connection.
- WPA2 Enterprise WIFI is NOT Supported
The WiFi network Internet Recovery will the Top “Preferred Network” listed to boot to Internet Recovery. If for some reason the Mac can’t connect to that network you will be prompted in firmware to connect to a different WiFi network or ethernet network.
Boot Security Requirements
- Firmware Password Protection – can be ON or OFF. If ON then you will be required to enter in the firmware password.
- Secure Boot – can enabled , the commands works fine.
- FileVault – can be enabled, you do not have to enter in your FV2 password.
Restart Requirements
- You do not have to reset the boot disk, clear out nvram commands or reset anything. When you restart the Mac, it will boot right back into macOS.
Twocanoes Recovery Selector.app = Easy Mode!!!
Are you going to remember all of the different nvram keys and values?
Probably not
Why not use one simple open source application to do this for you?
In comes the Recovery Selector.app
Tim had the great idea to take all the above command options and put them into one application. Two clicks gets your Mac rebooted to the Recovery Partition, Internet Recovery, Local HW Diagnostics or Internet HW Diagnostics.
Note: Admin access to reboot is not required, the app uses a LaunchDaemon.
You can download and try Recovery Selector.App below.
https://bitbucket.org/twocanoes/recovery-selector/downloads/
UPDATE 01/27/20
Tim put together a nice youtube video showing the process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS2s8TY1mrQ
We are only missing one critical nvram Internet Recovery Value.
We are only one nvram value away from perfect.
Option-⌘-R
“Upgrade to the latest macOS that is compatible with your Mac.“
I am going to change my Apple Enterprise Support ticket into an Enhancement Request. If this final value is added we will have all 5 boot modes available in macOS.
If you have any questions please comment below or Contact Me!