These advanced steps are primarily for system administrators and others who are familiar with the command line. You don't need a bootable installer to upgrade macOS or reinstall macOS, but it can be useful when you want to install on multiple computers without downloading the installer each time.
What you need to create a bootable installer
- A USB flash drive or other secondary volume formatted as Mac OS Extended, with at least 14GB of available storage
- A downloaded installer for macOS Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, High Sierra, or El Capitan
Download macOS
- Download: macOS Big Sur, macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, or macOS High Sierra
These download to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS [version name]. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation. To get the correct installer, download from a Mac that is using macOS Sierra 10.12.5 or later, or El Capitan 10.11.6. Enterprise administrators, please download from Apple, not a locally hosted software-update server. - Download: OS X El Capitan
This downloads as a disk image named InstallMacOSX.dmg. On a Mac that is compatible with El Capitan, open the disk image and run the installer within, named InstallMacOSX.pkg. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder. You will create the bootable installer from this app, not from the disk image or .pkg installer.
Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal
- Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer.
- Open Terminal, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
- Type or paste one of the following commands in Terminal. These assume that the installer is in your Applications folder, and MyVolume is the name of the USB flash drive or other volume you're using. If it has a different name, replace
MyVolume
in these commands with the name of your volume.
If you have more than one Mac you want to upgrade to macOS 10.15 Catalina but don't want to waste so much bandwidth downloading it for each machine, one option is to create a bootable installer on.
Big Sur:*
Catalina:*
- Method 1: Create macOS Catalina Bootable USB on Windows 10 via DMG Editor There are more than one solutions to create macOS Catalina Bootable USB on Windows 10 and we will go with easy one first. DMG Editor, a popular app developed by UUByte, is a multi-functional and cross-platform image burning tool that works on Windows, Linux and macOS.
- Step 5: Once the progress bar is at 100%, a bootable macOS USB is ready. After that, you can use that USB drive for installing macOS. This is one of the easiest way to create a bootable macOS USB on a Windows PC. The steps are simple and instructions are pretty clear.
- A macOS Catalina USB install drive is a great tool to have on hand to for quick and easy macOS 10.15 reinstalls. We show you how in this video tutorial.
- Or as the macOS Catalina is out, chances are you’ve lots of Mac and would like to create macOS Catalina bootable USB installer on Windows. For installing most systems like Windows 10 and others, creating a bootable USB installer is the first step and also the most important step.
Mojave:*
High Sierra:*
El Capitan:
* If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or earlier, include the --applicationpath
argument and installer path, similar to the way this is done in the command for El Capitan.
After typing the command:
- Press Return to enter the command.
- When prompted, type your administrator password and press Return again. Terminal doesn't show any characters as you type your password.
- When prompted, type
Y
to confirm that you want to erase the volume, then press Return. Terminal shows the progress as the volume is erased. - After the volume is erased, you may see an alert that Terminal would like to access files on a removable volume. Click OK to allow the copy to proceed.
- When Terminal says that it's done, the volume will have the same name as the installer you downloaded, such as Install macOS Big Sur. You can now quit Terminal and eject the volume.
Use the bootable installer
Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:
Apple silicon
- Plug the bootable installer into a Mac that is connected to the internet and compatible with the version of macOS you're installing.
- Turn on your Mac and continue to hold the power button until you see the startup options window, which shows your bootable volumes and a gear icon labled Options.
- Select the volume containing the bootable installer, then click Continue.
- When the macOS installer opens, follow the onscreen instructions.
Intel processor
- Plug the bootable installer into a Mac that is connected to the internet and compatible with the version of macOS you're installing.
- Press and hold the Option (Alt) ⌥ key immediately after turning on or restarting your Mac.
- Release the Option key when you see a dark screen showing your bootable volumes.
- Select the volume containing the bootable installer. Then click the up arrow or press Return.
If you can't start up from the bootable installer, make sure that the External Boot setting in Startup Security Utility is set to allow booting from external media. - Choose your language, if prompted.
- Select Install macOS (or Install OS X) from the Utilities window, then click Continue and follow the onscreen instructions.
Learn more
For more information about the createinstallmedia
command and the arguments that you can use with it, make sure that the macOS installer is in your Applications folder, then enter the appropriate path in Terminal:
- Big Sur: /Applications/Install macOS Big Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
- Catalina: /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
- Mojave: /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
- High Sierra: /Applications/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
- El Capitan: /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia
A bootable installer doesn't download macOS from the internet, but it does require an internet connection to get firmware and other information specific to the Mac model.
In previous tutorial, we wrote a post about creating macOS Catalina bootable USB on Mac, which is a simple tool and there are a couple of free tools to complete the task. You can even use the built-in tool Disk Utility and dd command to do it without installing any third-party apps. However, the situation is much different on Windows 10 because macOS install file (end with .dmg) is not supported by Windows OS. Unlike ISO image, there are few tools on Windows that can handle .dmg files. That's the most challenging part!
Os x installer. Mac OS X Installer for a Java Application. How to Create a Mac OS X Installer for a Java Application. With some simple steps. Installer is an application included in macOS (and in its progenitors OPENSTEP and NeXTSTEP) that extracts and installs files out of.pkg packages. It was created by NeXT, and is now maintained by Apple Inc. Its purpose is to help software developers create uniform software installers. Hackintosh Yosemite Installer can be used to install OS X Yosemite On PC without the need of a Mac. For detail Installation Guide and Instruction read: Install Hackintosh Yosemite on PC/Laptop This. Installer (.zip file) for the 2016 Alpha Release. PKG is the file format used to describe files used on Apples Mac OS X to install programs, these files are compressed and can be opened using Apple Installer.
So in this article, we will show you how to create macOS bootable USB on Windows 10 and targets macOS Catalina specifically, which is the latest version of Apple macOS and it is easy to download the install file. This will be a great help if there were something wrong with your Mac and a fresh install was demanded. Also if you were a Mac enthusiast and can not afford the price, then it is not a bad choice to build a hackintosh with Catalina.
Before heading to the details of each method, please make sure you have downloaded a copy of Catalina OS dmg file and a working USB drive with more than 12GB storage.
Method 1: Create macOS Catalina Bootable USB on Windows 10 via DMG Editor
There are more than one solutions to create macOS Catalina Bootable USB on Windows 10 and we will go with easy one first. DMG Editor, a popular app developed by UUByte, is a multi-functional and cross-platform image burning tool that works on Windows, Linux and macOS. It supports creating bootable USB from popular image files, including dmg, iso, zip, img. And it has full support for Linux distros and old versions of Windows OS. macOS support was not available in previous versions. But now, the latest version of DMG Editor adds better support for macOS dmg file. Let's get a try first.
Step 1.Go to UUByte official website and download Windows version of Etcher from there.
Step 2. Run the executable file and complete the installation process. After that, insert an USB drive in Windows 10.
Step 3. Open the installed UUByte DMG Editor by double-clicking on the icon shown on your home screen. Click on the 'Burn' option then. After that, add Catalina .dmg file to the software and click on 'Change' button to choose the inserted USB device.
Step 4. Finally, click on the 'Burn' button to start the dmg burning process. At this time, a progress bar is displayed on the screen and it gives you an estimated calculation for the time remaining.
Step 5. Wait about 10 minutes. It will show you a pop-up message after completing the task successfully.
The process is very quick and easy to execute. But you might have issues running Etcher app on old computers with low profile hardware. Etcher GUI is built primarily on a new Javascript framework called Electron , which consumes a lot of computing resources. So if you were going to use Etcher to create macOS Catalina bootable USB, make sure testing it on a high-profile Windows 10 PC or laptop.
Method 2: Convert .dmg to .iso and Create macOS Catalina Bootable USB
macOS Catalina install image is distributed in .dmg format and Windows 10 has no support. Hen it is almost impossible to read such files in conventional ways. So in this part, we will convert macOS Catalina dmg file into ISO and create a bootable installer by burning the ISO file to USB. This can be done with the help of third-party software.
To execute the method, you need two software. First, you need a special software to convert dmg to ISO. Second, an ISO to USB burning software to make bootable USB from ISO file. To demonstrate, we have used 7 PowerISO & UUByte ISO Editor to create macOS Catalina bootable USB from Windows 10.
Step 1: Download and install PowerISO on Windows 10.
Step 2: Insert your USB drive. Right-click on this peripheral device and choose the option to format it. After a few seconds, you will get the notification of completing the format process.
Step 3: Now, open PowerISO and navigate to Tool menu. From the pop-up list, please click the 'Convert' option.
Bootable Usb For Macos Catalina Patcher
Step 4: In a pop-up window, click the folder icon to add macOS Catalina dmg file in Source file field. And set an output file name under Destination file section. Next. choose Standard ISO Images (.ISO) from Output image file format.
Step 5: When the ISO file is created successfully. Download and install UUByte ISO Editor. Then click Burn button to open ISO burning Window. Next, add ISO file to the program and select the USB name. Wait for 7 minutes, and a bootable USB is ready!
Step 6: After getting a task completion message on screen, eject the USB and then start installing macOS Catalina from the USB drive.
The solution is simple but may need to purchase a couple of tools for executing the steps. But if you will search smartly on the internet, chances are there that you can get the required tools without paying any cost. However, if you want to bypass using any of the third-party tools, you can create the Catalina OS bootable USB by accessing macOS in a virtual machine.
Method 3: Use TransMac to Create macOS Catalina Bootable USB in Windows 10
TransMac is a single-purpose utility to open Mac disk image from a Windows PC. It's one of the quickest methods to create macOS bootable USB drive from dmg file. However, the support for Catalina is not good as Mojave and High Serrira. Plus, you have to pay for 59 USD to use the burn feature. That's why we mention this app at the end of this post.
Step 1: Download TransMac from the official site and run the .exe file to complete the installation process.
Step 2: Now plug in a USB device into the port. Now right-click on TransMac icon shown on the home screen and then choose to Run as administrator.
Step 3: After landing inside the tool's window, all disk drives will be displayed on the left side automatically. Click File -> Open Disk Image to load macOS Catalina dmf file into the program.
Step 4: Before proceeding further, you need to format your USB device to make it compatible with Mac HFS or APS partition. For doing the same, click on the 'Format Diks for Mac' option. Wait for 30 seconds to complete the process.
Boot Usb Osx Catalina
Step 5: Right-click on the selected USB disk. From the shown list, click on 'Restore with Disk Image'. If it shows any warning message, just click on the OK button to accept.
Step 6: After that, select the location of saved Mac OS Catalina DMG file and then click on the OK button. Now stay back and look after 20 minutes. You will get ready with a bootable Catalina USB.
TransMac is one of the easiest method to create a bootable macOS Installer USB on a Windows PC. You can use this application to burn any version of macOS operating system file to USB.
Conclusion
Bootable Pendrive Macos Catalina
To conclude, we would recommend going with either the first or the second method to create bootable macOS Catalina USB. Both are super easy to follow because you don't need to install multiple tools and go through a multi-layer process to meet your requirement.