Disk Utility

How to create a macOS Ventura volume partition on your Mac

macOS Ventura running on a Mac Studio

This tutorial shows you how to create a separate volume (partition) on your Mac’s internal drive to install macOS Ventura on it.

Using this method, you will have two macOS versions on the same Mac. The first volume will have the macOS you’re currently running (likely macOS Monterey), and the second volume will have macOS Ventura. You will be able to start up your Mac into either one.

New to Mac? Here’s all the tools in the Mac Utilities folder

macOS Utilities Folder

If you’ve just purchased your first Mac, and especially if you’re coming from Windows, you might be wondering about the Utilities folder. You may see the folder but have yet to open it or you might be looking for a specific tool and don’t realize it’s in that folder.

Whatever the case, we’re here with another in our New to Mac series to help you out! We’ll explain what’s in the Utilities folder and what each tool is for.

How to hide specific mounted volumes from your Mac’s desktop

We've already covered how to completely prevent partitions from mounting under macOS, but sometimes you want a partition mounted and ready to use but still want the benefit of it not cluttering up your desktop. For example, many people want their Time Machine partition constantly mounted and backing up throughout the day but don't need it to be visible at all.

Finder's preferences allow for hiding all volumes from the desktop but offer no control on a volume-by-volume basis. Therefore, we'll show you how to use the Terminal to hide mounted volumes on a case-by-case basis.

How to create blank disk images with Disk Utility

Should you ever find yourself in the need to create blank disk images, OS X's built-in Disk Utility is your friend. A disk image usually has a .dmg extension and appears, looks and behaves like any ordinary file, with one key exception: launching it prompts OS X to mount the volume on the desktop.

These mountable disk images can be useful in a number of situations. For example, you may want to create blank disk images for storage.

Furthermore, disk images can be used as a virtual disk for software distribution, to burn CDs or DVDs and so forth. In this step-by-step tutorial, you'll learn how to create blank disk images in Disk Utility, at any size, with optional password protection, formatting options and more.