I'm very, very new to using Macs in general - my current work computer (iMac Mid 2010) is the first that I've used, and it's only been a couple of months.

I work for a non-profit and someone has kindly donated a Mac mini (late 2012) to us. However, it has Windows 7 installed on it (why, I don't know). I'd like to use the mini as a work computer at home to sync with what I'm doing at the office. I've looked at the boot menus, and it doesn't look like there's any remnants of the Mac OS left - it was wiped clean and has Windows installed.

There might be a super-easy answer to this (I've done searches here that don't seem to match my general situation, but I could have missed it), and I apologize for my lack of Mac knowledge here, but I want to install a Mac OS back onto the Mac mini. What's the best approach? Thanks.


The easiest way to tackle this is to treat the Mac mini as if it had a blank drive and you needed to (re)install macOS from Internet Recovery.

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    Maybe not needed, but backup any files you might need first. (on all your computers while you're at it) I've had way too many friends wipe their own drive reinstalling an OS, and not realize it takes all the files with it not just the operating system. – Aaron Nov 30 '18 at 17:40
  • The problem is that you don't know whether the software you need to use will run on macOS. If you reinstall macOS, you may not be able to perform your job. – Dev Nov 30 '18 at 20:50
  • Thanks for all the help - I found some more info about this particular Mac mini that I didn't have before, so my issue changed a bit. I appreciate the responses. – Todd K Nov 30 '18 at 21:06
  • @Dev - the software that I need to run on the mini is all Mac stuff - the same stuff I run on the iMac I use at work. – Todd K Nov 30 '18 at 21:08
  • @ToddK Oh, okay, Glad to know it worked out for you! – Dev Nov 30 '18 at 22:16

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