How to Install the macOS Big Sur Public Beta

[2499723]

Somebody please check the column view in Finder. Has Apple finally fixed “Right Size All Columns Individually” option, so that columns automatically resize depending on the width of the folder/file name when browsing through various folders?
Right now all this right click feature does is adjusting the width of only one column ones and than that width remain the same for all other columns even if nested folder has very short file names in it.

Seems to be the same as before. To be fair, I never knew you could do this to begin with, but yes, 'Right Size All Columns Individually' does not result in all columns being maximised/minimised appropriately for folders within. Some file names remain shortened or the column remains wide for folders with short file names. That's been my experience anyway. Seems you'll be waiting a little longer for a solution!

 

[nameischarles]

Not feeling the menu bar, it's a bit too bright for dark mode and missing the calculator widget.

 

[J.J. Sefton]

I ended up having to erase and reformat my external SSD 2X. After that the install went well. Currently using it with no problems.

 

[RoarinRow]

I couldn't get it to install on my 2019 Mac Mini. After the 12GB download it would finally pop us with 'Installation failed. An error occurred while installing the selected updates'. I must have tried a dozen times. I also unenrolled/enrolled that many times as well. Then one other time I got a different message, 'The package InstallAssistant.pkg fails to meet Gatekeeper policy. An error occurred while installing selected updates'.

 

[ivan86]

Seems to be the same as before. To be fair, I never knew you could do this to begin with, but yes, 'Right Size All Columns Individually' does not result in all columns being maximised/minimised appropriately for folders within. Some file names remain shortened or the column remains wide for folders with short file names. That's been my experience anyway. Seems you'll be waiting a little longer for a solution!

Thank you for testing this out.

Column view without this feature working is just trash. You get to realize this as soon as you try any file manager where this feature does work.

I will continue posting info about this in every new beta thread in the hope that somebody at Apple does pay attention. I have submitted bug reports many time, but app I got is info that apparently such report already existed and thus my was deleted.

So apparently it exists for at least several years as a broken feature without any fixes. In reality I guess it never worked at all.

 

[tehgram]

when will the final update be released?

 

[EugW]

when will the final update be released?

October.

 

[DominikHoffmann]

Hope that helps

For me what helped was the suggestion from elsewhere to put this into the boot flags:

devices.mac_hw_model="MacBookPro14,3"
devices.smbios.board_id="Mac-****************"

 

[Sebosz]

I couldn't get it to install on my 2019 Mac Mini. After the 12GB download it would finally pop us with 'Installation failed. An error occurred while installing the selected updates'. I must have tried a dozen times. I also unenrolled/enrolled that many times as well. Then one other time I got a different message, 'The package InstallAssistant.pkg fails to meet Gatekeeper policy. An error occurred while installing selected updates'.

I got exactly the same errors. The worst is, my Internet connection is really slow and now I'm forced to download whole thing for the 3rd time because macOS deleted everything after the Gatekeeper error. Dammit...

 

[Jaekae]

Now is the time to start thinking about installing Catalina.

i would skip catalina and go big sur, this beta seems better than the latest catalina ^^

 

[Macbookprodude]

Not installing this on my 2015.. too many bugs.

 

[beatrixwillius]

So far BS has been super-buggy. Things like menubars or messageboxes seem too complicated for Apple.

And 2 days ago beta 4 bricked my MacBook Air. Wasn't able to get beyond recovery mode.

 

[iraotechstories]

Is anyone else's download SUPER slow.. like 12-24 hours to finish...

Downloading since Yesterday.Failed two times. Still downloading and getting 20 hours remaining

 

[EugW]

Downloading since Yesterday.Failed two times. Still downloading and getting 20 hours remaining

My download a couple of days ago took 5 mins.

 

[imnotthewalrus]

I got exactly the same errors. The worst is, my Internet connection is really slow and now I'm forced to download whole thing for the 3rd time because macOS deleted everything after the Gatekeeper error. Dammit...

I had installation issues also, including one "gatekeeper" error. Third time was the charm (2015 15" MBPr)

 

[jagolden]

Any user who requires a detailed walk-through in order to figure out how to install the Big Sur public beta should not be installing the Big Sur public beta.

I know! That’s two whole minutes I’ll never get back.
Sometimes it’s just nice to read through what they think you need to know. Apple is nowhere as intuitive as they used to be and they could easily stick in some stupid, incredibly minor step that could screw someone up.

 

[rjmorita]

I was really looking forward to the Big Sur public beta. But try as I might, it just would not install on my 2018 Mac mini. I would get an error message, "An error occurred installing macOS" at about 2 minutes into the installation process. I download the installer three times thinking it might be corrupt. I tried everything I could think of including resetting NVRAM, resetting SMC, reinstalling Catalina 10.15.6, running hardware diagnostics, rebooting in safe mode, etc. to no avail. It would not even install on my external drive. This is so strange. I've sent a feedback to Apple.

 

[Jaekae]

I'm quite certain this will wreak havoc on my audio programs if I install it...and I'll probably be an idiot and try it out anyway...

True it wrecked havoc on alot of my logic pro plugins , waves and u-he and some others cant even be found by logic even it was installed and working in catalina 😝

 

[michaelsviews]

What version Python is being installed with Big Sir?

 

[putnik]

will this dual boot with catalina if i install this on a external drive?

You can boot into a Catalina clone on an external, or vice versa, but I find that I then need to enter my iCloud password with 2FA, to change between the two systems. So not quite as easy as previously.

 

[putnik]

You can just install on an external drive directly right? No need to "upgrade", but the process makes it seem like you're gonna just upgrade the primary drive.

I'm gonna install Big Sur on my 14 year old Apple Seagate 80 GB hard drive from the original Mac Pro.

It will run like slug on an HDD. You need an SSD to use APFS, for both Catalina and Big Sur.

 

[putnik]

I'm not sure Catalina is stable!

After six iterations, Catalina must be more than stable. However, it is 64 bit and some third party apps won't have updated their software. Check on https://roaringapps.com/apps

 

[EugW]

It will run like slug on an HDD. You need an SSD to use APFS, for both Catalina and Big Sur.

It does indeed run like a slug on this HDD. However, the APFS format works just fine on the external HDD.

 

[Dave00]

My 2012 retina MBP apparently is not supported. It's too bad, because this is a great machine and there's no way I'll get one of the current iteration of MacBooks with their lack of an SD slot.

 

[ABCDEF-Hex]

Any user who requires a detailed walk-through in order to figure out how to install the Big Sur public beta should not be installing the Big Sur public beta.

Hey - you sound just like my old IT guy. How's it going?