However, later Intel-based Macs no longer make any sound on startup, so you should hold the key right away. On older Macs, you can wait until you hear the boot sound before holding the shortcut. To use these Mac startup commands and launch a specific boot mode, you must first press the power button and then immediately press and hold the desired key combination.

Others, like resetting SMC and NVRAM, are no longer needed on the latest Macs. Some of the more advanced options, like Verbose mode, are now hidden away.

Target Disk Mode: go to the Recovery menu and select Share Disk.

Set a Default Startup Disk: select your disk as above, then hold down the Option key and click Always Use.

Startup Manager: all your bootable disks will be displayed in the startup options screen, so just pick the one you want.

Safe Mode: select a volume, hold the Shift key, and click Continue in Safe Mode.

This will launch the macOS recovery mode, from where you can access some of the other boot modes, including:

Power on your Mac and keep holding the power button until you see the startup options screen.

Instead of starting your computer and holding down certain key combinations, you access the options in a different way: The startup options for M1 and M2-based Macs have changed. The Mac startup keys listed below refer mostly to Intel-based Macs.

Even More macOS Keyboard Shortcuts to Know.

Prevent Login Items/Previous Windows: Shift.

Eject Optical Media: Eject, F12, or Mouse/Trackpad.Apple Hardware Test/Apple Diagnostics: D.

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