Delete/uninstall MacOS without wiping volume?

I have variants of MacOS installed on external SSD's (using APFS) that I no longer need, mixed with large data sets that I do need.

I'd like to wipe the OS on a volume without erasing the whole volume, to avoid the hours-long data copy/archive before wiping the volume to wipe the OS. Is that possible?

Moving forward, I can try to segregate data to other volumes, but the production deployment is OS and data on the same volume (again, to avoid copies), so it's not ideal.

(I realize it's not a high-traffic use case and unlikely to be supported.)

Thanks...

Answered by pde5i in 758739022

FWIW, I have been able to uninstall an OS only by deleting the volume, but that has worked reliably, so now I maintain a separate volume for any OS I plan to delete, like a beta.

Accepted Answer

FWIW, I have been able to uninstall an OS only by deleting the volume, but that has worked reliably, so now I maintain a separate volume for any OS I plan to delete, like a beta.

Delete/uninstall MacOS without wiping volume?
 
 
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