Create Mac Usb Installer



To create a bootable El Capitan installer drive, you need the El Capitan installer from the Mac App Store and a Mac-formatted drive that’s big enough to hold the installer and all its data. Creating a bootable USB with the ROSA ImageWriter will take time. When the process is complete, your bootable USB installer will be ready to use! In this list, we covered 4 ways you can create a bootable USB installer on Linux. Each of the methods we demonstrated is great in their own way, but it is up to you to decide what one.

Have you ever been faced with the need to install a new operating system on a crashed PC but realize that you don't have the installation disc? For most people, such a case is always discouraging and disheartening because they know that the only way to install a new OS is to use an installation disc. Actually, all you need is a USB with a good capacity and a utility like Rufus. Rufus is a free, portable open-source utility that you can use to create bootable USB flash drives. Rufus is small in size, but it surprisingly has everything you need as far as the above are concerned.

Does Rufus Have a Mac Version?

Rufus is primarily a Windows application and currently, it supports 64 or 32 bit Windows XP/7/8/10 only. This means that you can not use Rufus on the normal Mac computers. If you need to run Rufus on a Mac, then it will be imperative for the computer to have a dual boot Windows installed on Mac. However, this is not an easy task at all.

To those in the dark, this simply means that you will need to have a Windows Operating system installed in your Mac computer. However, if you didn't want to have two operating systems running on the same machine so that you can access Rufus, there are quite a number of alternatives you can use to achieve the same functionalities of Rufus on Mac.

Rufus for Mac Alternative 1: UUByte ISO Editor

UUByte ISO Editor is by far one of the best ISO toolkits for those who want a seamless process in creating, burning, extracting and editing ISO images. Unlike Rufus, it has both Windows and Mac versions so you don't have to worry about not having Rufus for Mac or the need to install two operating systems in your Mac.

Mac create bootable usb installer for mojave

This ISO editor can effortlessly burn ISO image to DVD, CD or USB which you can then go ahead and use as a bootable disc for new installation. The tool is also versatile enough to create an ISO archive from folders or external sources, in addition to extracting or mounting ISO files to Mac or Windows computers. With over 220,000 users worldwide, it is a clear winner among the ISO toolkits available in the market today.

Why Choose UUByte ISO Editor

  • Full ISO toolkit for Windows and Mac.
  • Easily create bootable USB or DVD from Windows ISO.
  • 5X faster burning speed.
  • Excellent customer support.

How to burn ISO to USB on Mac using UUByte ISO Editor: Please download UUByte ISO Editor for Mac and install the app. Then drag and drop the app icon to Application folder so you can open the app from Launchpad. After that, insert a USB stick and click 'Burn' button at the first screen. Now import Windows ISO to the program and start burning ISO to USB by clicking 'Burn' button at the bottom of the Window. Finally, wait for 10 minutes to get the job done.

Rufus for Mac Alternative 2: UNetbootin

Universal Netboot Installer Unetbootin, is another cross-platform utility toolkit that makes a great alternative to Rufus on Mac. It has the ability to load and install various Linux distros on Mac. It is easy to use and supports a myriad of platforms. All you have to do is select an ISO file or the specific distribution you want to download and then simply choose the target drive. It also comes with a nice GUI, which further adds to the user experience during use.

Pros:

  • Support Windows, Mac and Linux.
  • Able to download Linux ISO within the program.
  • Easily create ISO image from files or folders.

Cons:

  • Non-native user interface.
  • Lower success rate on new USB drives.
  • Lack support for CD or DVD.

Rufus for Mac Alternative 3: Etcher

Etcher is another great Rufus alternative for Mac. It has been designed to allow you to easily and comfortably burn ISO images to USB drives and SD cards. The utility comes with an advanced interface which may be intimidating on first glance, but after going through the simple user guide, getting around to use the utility becomes a breeze.

Simply download this tool, launch it, and then choose the IMG file you are interested in burning. You will then select the location of the target USB drive or SD card and then wait for it to do its magic. It is lightweight and relatively fast, so you won't have to wait for a whole day for the burning process to end.

Pros:

  • Polish user interface.
  • Support USB drives as well as SD cards.
  • Easy to use.

Cons:

  • Being loaded slowly on startup.
  • Get stuck at burning process easily.
  • Poor support for Windows 10 ISO.

Verdict:

Rufus is a great application for burning ISO to USB. Unfortunately, there is no Mac version yet. So for burning ISO to USB on Mac, you have to use third-party alternatives like UUByte ISO Editor to get it done. The suggestions in this post almost do the same thing as Rufus on Windows so don't worry about the functionality. Go ahead and pick up the best one according to your experience.

Apple uses its App Store to distribute its software, like new Mac operating systems. It’s convenient, but sometimes it can take a while for a download to finish. And if you have multiple Macs, it’s inefficient to download the new OS to each and every Mac.

Create Mac Usb Installer

That’s why I like to make a bootable external drive for the sole purpose of installing the Mac operating system. When I need to tend to a bunch of Macs, it’s much faster to use a bootable drive instead of going to each Mac, launching the App Store, searching for the operating system, downloading it (after entering my Apple ID), and then running the installer.

You can create a bootable USB flash drive with the macOS Sierra installer that’s now available. The installer software will take up nearly 5GB of storage space. Here’s how to create a bootable macOS Sierra installer drive.

Usb

Download the macOS Sierra installer

Launch the App Store app, then look for macOS Sierra in the store. (Here’s a link.) Click on the Download button, and your Mac will download the installer to your Applications folder. If it automatically launches after download, quit the installer.

If you’ve already upgraded your Mac to Sierra, the installer is removed from the Applications folder. You can download it again if you go to Purchased in the App Store. Look for macOS Sierra in the list of apps that you’ve bought, and click on the Download button. If it automatically launches after download, quit the installer.

Get an external drive

You can use a USB flash drive or a hard drive with room for the installer software. I’ve used different drives with success, including a VisionTek 120GB USB 3.0 Pocket Solid State Drive ($83 on Amazon) and an old 8GB Iomega Micro Mini Hard Drive.

Don’t worry if the drive isn’t formatted for the Mac. The drive will be reformatted automatically as part of the process. Change the name of your drive to Untitled; you need to do this for the steps below.

The quick and easy way

Create Mac Usb Installer

The process detailed below involves the Terminal. If your really don’t want to use Terminal, there are a couple of free apps you can use.

Create Mac Usb Installer

  • Install Disk Creator is a straightforward way to create a boot disk. I was able to make a macOS Sierra external USB boot disk in a few minutes, and the installation worked without a hitch. Also works with older versions of OS X.
  • Diskmaker X is a popular app. It also supports older versions of OS X.

Use the Terminal to create a boot disk

So you have your external drive, and the Sierra beta installer is in place. Now you’re going to use Terminal to create a boot drive. If you’ve never used Terminal before, don’t worry. This is pretty easy.

Create Mac Os Installer

Here are the steps to create a macOS Sierra beta boot disk. (Apple also has these instructions.)

Create Os X Catalina Usb Installer

  1. Connect the external drive to your Mac. (In the Terminal command you will use, I use Untitled to represent your external drive. If your drive is named something else, you need to change Untitled to the name of your drive.)
  2. Launch Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app).
  3. Copy the following:
    sudo /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app
  4. Go back to Terminal and paste the copied code at the prompt.
  5. Terminal will ask for a password. This is your user password. Terminal doesn’t display characters when you type it in. Hit Return.
  6. Terminal will tell you that it will erase your drive. To confirm that you want to continue, type Y and hit Return.
  7. You’ll see that Terminal erases your drive. When that part is done, your Mac may ask you if you want to use the drive for Time Machine. Click Don’t Use.
  8. Terminal will copy the installer file to your drive. This will take a few minutes.
  9. After copying, Terminal is done. You should see Terminal display a “Copy complete” and Done notice. You can quit Terminal and your drive is ready for use.

Create Macos Usb Installer

How to boot from the installer drive

Mac Create Bootable Usb Installer For Mojave

  1. Plug your external drive into your Mac.
  2. Power up (or restart) your Mac. Press down on the Option key while the Mac boots.
  3. After a few moments, your Mac should display the Startup Manager, which will show you the available boot drives. Click on the external drive and hit Return. (You don’t need to select a network to proceed.)
  4. Your Mac will display an OS X Utilites window. If you want to install Sierra and leave the data intact, select Install OS X. If you want to start over and wipe out the data, you need to go into Disk Utility to reformat the internal drive first, and then install macOS Sierra.