Tails includes an automatic mechanism to upgrade a USB stick to a newer version.In some cases, it is impossible to do an **automatic upgrade** and you might have to do a **manual upgrade**. This page describes both techniques.
In the **About Tails** utility, you can click **Check for Upgrades** to check whether a new version of Tails is available. This check is also done automatically every time you start Tails and connect to the Tornetwork.
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The advantages of this techniqueautomatic upgrades are the following:
- If an error occurs while installing the upgrade, *Tails Upgrader* asks you to visit:
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If another error occur while upgrading or if your Tails USB stick fails to start after an automatic upgrade, see below how towe recommend that you do a manual upgrade instead. See below.
If another error occur while upgrading or if your TailsUSB stick fails to start after an automatic upgrade, we recommend that you do a manual upgrade instead. See below.
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<h1 id="manual">Manual upgrade using <i>Tails InstallCloner</i></h1>
- No automatic upgrade is available from our website for this version.
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The automatic upgrade is impossible for technical reasons (not enough memory, not enough free space on the USB stick, etc.).and so on). For example, if you get the following error message:
The automatic upgrade is impossible for technical reasons (not enough memory, not enough free space on the USB stick, and so on). For example, if you get the following error message:
- The automatic upgrade failed and you need to repair a TailsUSB stick.
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After connecting to Tor, a dialog informs you if you have to upgrade your USB stick using <span class="application">Tails InstallCloner</span> to a newer version of Tails.
After connecting to Tor, a dialog informs you if you have to upgrade your USB stick using <span class="application">Tails Cloner</span> to a newer version of Tails.
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<p>You can also do a manual upgrade to reduce the size of future automatic upgrades, as described [[above|upgrade#reduce]].</p>
<p>You can also do a manual upgrade to reduce the size of future automatic upgrades.</p>
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<p>When doing automatic upgrades, the size of the download increases over time. If you do a manual upgrade, the size of future automatic upgrades will become smaller again.</p>
<p>When doing automatic upgrades, the size of the download increases over time. If you do a manual upgrade, the size of future automatic upgrades will become smaller again.</p>
<p>We estimated that, to actually reduce the overall download size, it's only worth it to do 1 manual upgrade every year if you apply all upgrades of Tails.</p>