Force Your Mac to Boot Into macOS Instead of Windows via Boot Camp

April 20, 2021 / By

This guide will show you how to force your Mac to boot into macOS instead of Windows, after you’ve installed Windows via Boot Camp.

You’ve probably noticed that your Mac will now boot up into Windows by default. This brief tutorial will show you how to set your Mac to load macOS rather than Windows each time it starts up.

  1. First things first – start your Mac in macOS/OS X. To do this, hold down the Option key while your Mac starts up. You’ll be presented with a list of each bootable Operating System on your Mac. Select the icon for macOS.

    2. os x boot screen with windows listed

  2. Once macOS has started up, click the “Apple” in your menu bar and select System Preferences… from the list of options.

    3. the Apple Menu with an arrow pointing at System Preferences...

  3. Select Startup Disk from the System Preferences panel.

    4. the macOS System Preferences with an arrow pointing at the Startup Disk icon

  4. You’ll probably need to ‘Unlock’ this section to make changes, so click the small lock icon found in the bottom left corner of the window and then enter your password.
  5. Now select the icon that represents your macOS disk.

    6. selecting a hard drive to force boot a Mac into macOS

  6. Finally, exit out of the System Preferences. That’s it! The next time you restart your Mac, it will “force boot” macOS. Of course you can always boot into Windows again by holding down the Option key when your Mac is starting up and then just select the Windows disk.

If you ever decide you’re tired of having Windows on your Mac, make sure to remove it properly.

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6 thoughts on “Force Your Mac to Boot Into macOS Instead of Windows via Boot Camp”

  1. ina

    Thank you so much for this little but great tip. Strangely it wasn’t too easy to find a solution to this problem. The apple phone support who helped me through the boot camp set-up process even told me that the Mac will always start up in the operating system that was used last. Well, I quickly figured that wasn’t the case!

  4. Chris

    Brilliant tutorial! I was really stumped with trying to re-access OX-10 after I had installed Windows 7. This solved everything, thanks

  5. MRJ4

    I am running Win 7 Pro 32-Bit on my MacBook Pro. Had all the same lag issues everyone on the web is talking about. But, now I am going to do a clean install to upgrade to Win 7 Ult 64-Bit this weekend. I’m really excited and anxious. I printed your directions. They are nice and clear and should be super helpful. Thank you for this. Keep up the good work!

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