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This is in regard to the Jamf Blog post Reinstall a clean macOS with one button.

While this functionality does appear to be extremely handy, it has become clear to me that Apple did not see fit to test this workflow with FileVault enabled Macs (big surprise!). While the Self Service policy based wipe/reinstall does indeed wipe and re-install, after ~4 run-throughs (10.13.5 to 10.13.5) on a FV enabled Mac, the OS comes up with 8 partitions (one APFS called Macintosh HD, one HFS+ called Macintosh HD, and others numbered 2-7, all HFS+) post Setup Assistant.

Would some of you FileVault users try to replicate this and report back? The steps carried out are as listed in the blog post, aside from the installer being placed into /Users/Shared (it is our existing "upgrade in place" package).

@tcandela You misread the article. The --fetch-full-installer command did not exist in softwareupdate until Catalina, so you can't use it in older version of macOS


@sdagley I had a feeling that was the case; so if i want to run this command it would have to be on a mac running Catalina? but it will put the installer for 10.13.6 or 10.14.6 on the mac running Catalina? then i can grab that installer and use on other computers?

sudo /usr/sbin/softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 10.13.6 or 10.14.6

does the startosinstall command exist for earlier macOS? '/Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall' ‑‑usage


@tcandela startosinstall is available in the 10.13 and 10.14 installers. BTW, I am a fan of the macOSUpgrade script for upgrades as it does a bit of error checking before attempting the upgrade.