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This guide walks you through creating a full OpenCore EFI with OpCore Simplify. You will start from a fresh download and finish with a Results/ folder ready to copy to your USB drive. The entire process is interactive — the tool prompts you at every stage, so you do not need to edit any files by hand.
All generated files are written to the Results/ folder inside your OpCore Simplify directory (for example C:\Tools\OpCore-Simplify-main\Results\ on Windows or ~/Tools/OpCore-Simplify-main/Results/ on macOS/Linux). The tool opens this folder automatically when the build finishes.
1

Download and launch OpCore Simplify

If you have not yet installed OpCore Simplify, follow the Installation guide to download the ZIP, extract it, and run the correct launcher for your platform (OpCore-Simplify.bat on Windows, OpCore-Simplify.command on macOS, or python3 OpCore-Simplify.py on Linux).After the automatic update check completes you will see the main menu:
1. Select Hardware Report
2. Select macOS Version
3. Customize ACPI Patch
4. Customize Kexts
5. Customize SMBIOS Model
6. Build OpenCore EFI

Q. Quit
All other options are locked until you complete Step 2 and load a hardware report.
2

Export or load the hardware report

The hardware report is a Report.json file that contains a complete snapshot of your system: CPU, GPU, chipset, storage controllers, network adapters, Bluetooth, BIOS firmware type, Secure Boot state, and Resizable BAR information. The tool also reads a paired ACPI dump (a folder of .aml table files) to generate accurate SSDT patches.On Windows (recommended): At the “Select hardware report” prompt you will see an extra option:
E. Export hardware report (Recommended)
Type E and press Enter. OpCore Simplify launches Hardware Sniffer automatically, collects your hardware data, dumps your ACPI tables, and saves everything to a SysReport/ folder inside the tool’s directory. The report is loaded immediately — no further action required.
Hardware Sniffer cannot capture Resizable BAR status or monitor connection details when running inside Windows PE. For the most accurate report, run the export from a normal booted Windows session.
On macOS or Linux: Hardware Sniffer is Windows-only, so you must generate the report on a Windows machine first. Run Hardware Sniffer on Windows to produce Report.json and the ACPI/ dump folder, copy the SysReport/ folder to your macOS or Linux machine, then drag and drop Report.json into the terminal prompt (or type its full path) and press Enter.Once a valid report is loaded, the tool automatically runs the full setup chain without returning to the main menu: compatibility check → macOS version selection (Step 3) → hardware customization → SMBIOS selection → ACPI table check → ACPI patch selection → kext selection → SMBIOS-specific options. You only interact at the macOS version picker prompt; everything else is determined automatically from your hardware.
3

Review compatibility and macOS version selection

As part of the automatic chain launched by option 1, OpCore Simplify first runs its Compatibility Checker. It evaluates every detected device against its internal hardware database and flags:
  • Devices with no macOS support (will be disabled in the EFI)
  • Devices that require OpenCore Legacy Patcher for certain macOS versions
  • The native macOS range your hardware supports without patching
The tool then opens the macOS version picker and pre-selects the most broadly compatible version for your hardware. For example, if your discrete GPU dropped native support after macOS Monterey, the tool will default to Monterey rather than a newer release.
Suggested macOS version:
- For better compatibility and stability, we suggest you to use only macOS Monterey or older.

Available macOS versions:

   17. macOS High Sierra
   ...
   21. macOS Ventura
   22. macOS Sonoma (Requires OpenCore Legacy Patcher)
   ...

Please enter the macOS version you want to use (default: macOS Ventura):
Press Enter to accept the default, or type a major version number (e.g. 21) or a full Darwin version string (e.g. 22.4.6) to override it.
If you select a macOS version marked “Requires OpenCore Legacy Patcher”, the tool will warn you that SIP and AMFI will be disabled and that the official Dortania OCLP release does not support macOS Tahoe 26 — only lzhoang2801/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher v3.0.0 or newer does. You must explicitly type yes to continue.
4

Review ACPI patches and kexts (optional customisation)

After macOS selection, OpCore Simplify automatically assembles the ACPI patch list and kext set for your hardware. You do not need to change anything here for a first build — but the menu lets you fine-tune both if needed.Option 3 — Customize ACPI Patch: Displays every detected ACPI patch with a checkbox. Common patches applied automatically include FakeEC, FixHPET, PLUG, RTCAWAC, PNLF, USBX, XOSI, sleep-wake fixes, and device-disable patches for unsupported GPUs, Wi-Fi cards, or NVMe controllers. Toggle any patch on or off.Option 4 — Customize Kexts: Lists all kexts in the build with their enable/disable state. You can also force-load a kext on an unsupported macOS version from this menu — useful for testing pre-release macOS builds.Option 5 — Customize SMBIOS Model: Shows the automatically chosen Mac model identifier (e.g. MacBookPro18,1 or iMacPro1,1) and lets you substitute a different one. Only change this if you have a specific reason — the default is optimised for power management and performance on your CPU generation.
For a first build, skip all customisation options and go straight to Step 5. You can always re-run the tool with the same Report.json and tweak settings after your first successful boot.
5

Build the OpenCore EFI

Select option 6 from the main menu and press Enter.If your chosen macOS version requires OpenCore Legacy Patcher, the tool will show the OCLP warning one more time and ask you to confirm before proceeding.The build then runs through five automatic stages displayed as a progress bar:
Building OpenCore EFI
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[1/5] Copying EFI base to results folder
[2/5] Applying ACPI patches
[3/5] Copying kexts and snapshotting to config.plist
[4/5] Generating config.plist
[5/5] Cleaning up unused drivers, resources, and tools
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OpenCore EFI build complete.
During this process the tool:
  • Downloads the latest OpenCorePkg from Dortania Builds and extracts it as the EFI base
  • Downloads every required kext from Dortania Builds or GitHub releases
  • Compiles and copies SSDT files generated by SSDTTime into EFI/OC/ACPI/
  • Writes a fully populated config.plist with all quirks, device properties, boot arguments, NVRAM entries, and kernel patches set correctly for your hardware and macOS target
  • Removes unused drivers, tools, and picker theme variants to keep the EFI lean
Depending on your internet connection speed, the download step may take one to several minutes. When the build completes, the tool opens the Results/ folder automatically.
6

Complete post-build steps before installing macOS

OpCore Simplify displays a “Before Using EFI” screen immediately after the build. It lists any BIOS/UEFI setting changes you must make, such as:
  • Enabling UEFI mode (disabling Legacy/CSM) if your firmware report showed Legacy mode
  • Disabling Secure Boot
  • Enabling Above 4G Decoding and disabling Resizable BAR/Smart Access Memory on eligible desktop platforms
The screen also shows the USB mapping steps you must complete before attempting a macOS installation:
  1. Use USBToolBox to map your USB ports and generate UTBMap.kext.
  2. Copy UTBMap.kext into EFI/OC/Kexts/.
  3. Remove UTBDefault.kext from EFI/OC/Kexts/.
  4. Open config.plist with ProperTree and run OC Snapshot (Cmd/Ctrl + R) to register the kext change.
  5. If any single USB controller exposes more than 15 ports, enable the XhciPortLimit kernel patch in config.plist.
  6. Save the file.
For detailed USB mapping instructions see USB Mapping.
Do not skip USB mapping. macOS enforces a 15-port-per-controller limit and will fail to boot or behave erratically without a proper USB map. The placeholder UTBDefault.kext included in the build is intentionally generic and must be replaced.
Once your BIOS settings are adjusted and USB mapping is complete, copy the EFI/ folder from Results/ to the EFI partition of your USB installer and proceed with the macOS installation.

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