How to Turn Off Secure Boot on Mac

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posted on 5 years ago — updated on 1 second ago

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Mac computers equipped with a T2 chip have an added feature called secure boot. It prevents unsigned operating systems from running on your Mac. Secure boot helps protect against bootkits, or malware that infects the master boot record (MBR) on your computer. While there should be no need to change this setting, if you plan on installing an older operating system such as macOS Sierra and earlier or run operating systems that are unsigned such as some distributions of Linux, you may need to disable secure boot to be able to run these needed operating systems. This wikiHow will show you how to disable secure boot on Mac so you can boot a legacy version of Windows or macOS or an operating system that does not support secure boot.[1]
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Steps

Press ⌘ Command+R on the keyboard. While doing so, start up your computer. You will see the macOS Utilities window.

Open Startup Security Utility. From the menu bar, choose "Utilities" > "Startup Security Utility". You will need to provide authentication via a Mac administrator username and password to proceed.

Choose "No security". This will disable secure boot. If you do not want to disable secure boot entirely, you can choose "Medium security" which allows for pre-signed operating systems to run. The default "Full security" option requires signatures from Apple to run. This will require an internet connection at installation time.

Restart your Mac. From the Apple menu, choose "Restart". You should now be able to run legacy versions of operating systems to run. If you have trouble, then make sure that there is not a firmware password and that you are an administrator on your Mac.