I ’ve writtenquite a bit about the not - quite - so - fresh Apple File System ( APFS ) formatthat Apple adopted for both iOS and — with macOS 10.13 High Sierra — for SSDs that are a Mac ’s boot volume . While questions have for the most part tapered off in late weeks after a spate of issues withTime Machine , APFS , and external drives , multitude are clearly still wrestling with some of the point .
A Macworld reader ca n’t get the HFS+ pick to appear , but that ’s by design .
Macworld referee Andrew spell in asking about reformatting his High Sierra organisation , and wanting to take HFS+ ( Mac OS Extended , Journaled ) . However , afterbooting into macOS Recovery , the Disk Utility app only offer up up APFS choice . Why is that ?
MacOS Recovery is in sync with High Sierra , and Apple exchange a boot SSD volume into APFS when you install High Sierra . While that was optional during High Sierra ’s public genus Beta period , it became mandatory and unavoidable on release . As a result , even trying to efface a iron boot SSD volume only presents APFS options .
It ’s potential you could force HFS+ on a thrill SSD with High Sierra with some Terminal tinker around , but I ca n’t see that would terminate well , and I ’m not sure it offers any reward . It ’s too hazardous to recommend .
However , if you ’re try out to downgrade to Sierra or an former version of macOS , I wouldcreate a bootable installerof that variant of macOS , start out up your Mac from it , and then use Disk Utility within Sierra or earlier to reformat the SSD with HFS+ . Then you’re able to establish previous versions of macOS on that Mac .
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