macOS Repair Assistant Replaces Apple Diagnostics
[Y]ou’ll then be invited to choose from the available diagnostic suites according to your Mac’s hardware, from:
- Mac Resource Inspector, to test the main Mac hardware over a period of 1-7 minutes;
- Display Anomalies, for any built-in LCD panel;
- Keyboard, only when built-in;
- Trackpad, only when built-in;
- Touch ID, for any built-in Touch ID sensor;
- Audio, to verify audio output using a set of test tones.
Currently these are run individually and there’s no means to run them all in sequence.
[…]
This is a huge improvement on Apple Diagnostics, but there’s one slight glitch. Previous results from diagnostic testing were recorded in the Diagnostics section of System Information, but not those from Repair Assistant.
As he says, the documention is unhelpful and vague. Note that Repair Assistant is different from Recovery Assistant, which also debuted in Tahoe.
Previously:
Update (2026-02-19): Howard Oakley:
There have been substantial changes made to Recovery for Apple silicon Macs in recent versions of macOS. This article guides you through its increasing complexities, using the road map below.
There’s one overriding caution: you will come across two different features with the same name. When you click on Options in the opening screen, that opens Recovery Assistant, where you select the user and authenticate to gain access to the Recovery app with its window of four options. If you open the Utilities menu in that, you’ll see a command Recovery Assistant, which opens another app that calls itself Device Recovery Assistant, but is generally referred to simply as Recovery Assistant, although it’s not the same as the other Recovery Assistant at all.
