{"id":50886,"date":"2026-02-02T17:21:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T22:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=50886"},"modified":"2026-02-06T15:03:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:03:30","slug":"dfu-port-on-16-inch-macbook-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/02\/dfu-port-on-16-inch-macbook-pro\/","title":{"rendered":"DFU Port on the 16-Inch MacBook Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lapcatsoftware.com\/articles\/2026\/2\/1.html\">Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/lapcatsoftware.com\/articles\/2026\/2\/1.html\">\n<p>This [<a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/120694\">Apple documentation<\/a>] is wrong, a discovery that took me about a half dozen attempts to update macOS on an external disk. I have a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 chip, specifically an M4 Pro chip, and the DFU port seems to be the USB-C port on the right side of the Mac, not on the left side.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Over the past few days, every attempt I made to update the disk volume to macOS 15.7.3 failed inexplicably. I tried both Software Update in System Settings and the <code>softwareupdate<\/code> command-line tool in Terminal. They went through all the motions, downloading the entire update, rebooting, etc., but afterwards I always ended up right where I started, at macOS 15.2. The <code>softwareupdate<\/code> tool gave no error message.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>By the way, Software Update in System Settings allowed my Mac to go to sleep during the &ldquo;Preparing&rdquo; phase, despite the fact that the battery was charged to 99%, so when I returned home from a workout I unhappily found 30 minutes remaining.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/29\/failing-to-finish-updating-macos-on-an-external-disk\/\">Failing to Finish Updating macOS on an External Disk<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/04\/how-external-bootable-disks-work-with-apple-silicon-macs\/\">How External Bootable Disks Work With Apple Silicon Macs<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/25\/error-702-installing-macos-on-an-external-drive\/\">Error 702 Installing macOS on an External Drive<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/04\/macos-installers-failed-to-personalize-error\/\">macOS Installer&rsquo;s &ldquo;Failed to Personalize&rdquo; Error<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"dfu-port-on-16-inch-macbook-pro-update-2026-02-03\">Update (<a href=\"#dfu-port-on-16-inch-macbook-pro-update-2026-02-03\">2026-02-03<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/howardnoakley\/status\/2018571065006715043\">Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/x.com\/howardnoakley\/status\/2018571065006715043\">\n<p>I have <a href=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2025\/01\/14\/thunderbolt-ports-arent-all-the-same\/\">suggested a way of discovering which is the DFU port<\/a> by discovering which is listed as Receptacle 1 in System Info.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p id=\"dfu-port-on-16-inch-macbook-pro-update-2026-02-06\">Update (<a href=\"#dfu-port-on-16-inch-macbook-pro-update-2026-02-06\">2026-02-06<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2026\/02\/06\/apple-silicon-macs-have-2-types-of-thunderbolt-ports\/\">Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2026\/02\/06\/apple-silicon-macs-have-2-types-of-thunderbolt-ports\/\">\n<p>The original version of that support note appears to have been published on 9 December 2024, four years after the release of the first Apple silicon Macs, and almost seven years after the first Intel Macs with T2 chips. When I discovered it in January 2025, <a href=\"https:\/\/eclecticlight.co\/2025\/01\/14\/thunderbolt-ports-arent-all-the-same\/\">I found it internally inconsistent<\/a>, &ldquo;for instance, it shows the DFU port as being that on the left of the left side of a MacBook Pro, but states in the text that on a MacBook Pro 14-inch 2024 with an M4 chip, the DFU port is that on the right of the left side instead.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Future Macs should identify the DFU port on their case.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, but also you shouldn&rsquo;t have to know what the marking on the case means. The software should just tell you if an error is because of the DFU port. (Or, better yet, make it work with all the ports. Is that really not possible?)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jeff Johnson: This [Apple documentation] is wrong, a discovery that took me about a half dozen attempts to update macOS on an external disk. I have a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 chip, specifically an M4 Pro chip, and the DFU port seems to be the USB-C port on the right side of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-02-02T22:21:40Z","apple_news_api_id":"8ea7d633-e6e8-49cf-807f-c01375e13579","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-02-06T20:03:33Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AjqfWM-boSc-Af8ATdeE1eQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2680,2679,2806,164,30,100,2598,2062,2087,174,201,1154],"class_list":["post-50886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple-m4-max","tag-apple-m4-pro","tag-dfu-mode","tag-documentation","tag-mac","tag-macbookpro","tag-macos-15-sequoia","tag-sleep-mode","tag-software-update","tag-storage","tag-thunderbolt","tag-usb-c"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50886"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50939,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50886\/revisions\/50939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}