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.
Download macOS
Global Nav Open Menu Global Nav Close Menu; Apple; Shopping Bag. 3 macOS Mojave Bootable Installer (macOS Mojave DMG) Download and install macOS Mojave without MAS Normally, when you download macOS Mojave (or any other macOS release) from MAS, some package files are downloaded to your computer, and then processed by MAS, to convert them into an executable “.app” file.
- Jun 11, 2018 How to Make a Bootable macOS Mojave 10.14 Beta USB Installer Drive. First, connect the USB flash drive to the Mac (if the USB flash drive is not yet formatted as MacOS Journaled Extended, do that first with Disk Utility) Download the macOS Mojave developer beta installer application from the Mac App Store.
- MacOS Mojave Download Links: Mirror, Torrent, Direct links for all macOS Mojave supported Mac models. Since the release of OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Apple has decided to release its operating systems every year and unfortunately, nothing good has ended.
Find the appropriate download link in the upgrade instructions for each macOS version:
- macOS Catalina, macOS Mojave, and macOS High Sierra download directly to your Applications folder as an app named Install macOS Catalina, Install macOS Mojave, or Install macOS High Sierra. If the installer opens after downloading, quit it without continuing installation.
To get the required 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. - macOS Sierra downloads as a disk image that contains a file named InstallOS.pkg. Open this file and follow the onscreen instructions. It installs an app named Install macOS Sierra into your Applications folder.
- OS X El Capitan downloads as a disk image that contains a file named InstallMacOSX.pkg. Open this file and follow the onscreen instructions. It installs an app named Install OS X El Capitan into your Applications folder.
Use the 'createinstallmedia' command in Terminal
- Connect the USB flash drive or other volume that you're using for the bootable installer. Make sure that it has at least 12GB of available storage and is formatted as Mac OS Extended.
- 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 still 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.
Catalina:*
Mojave:*
High Sierra:*
Sierra:
El Capitan: - Press Return after typing 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 bootable installer is created. - When Terminal says that it's done, the volume will have the same name as the installer you downloaded, such as Install macOS Catalina. You can now quit Terminal and eject the volume.
* If your Mac is using macOS Sierra or earlier, include the
--applicationpath
argument, similar to the way this argument is used in the commands for Sierra and El Capitan.Use the bootable installer
After creating the bootable installer, follow these steps to use it:
- Plug the bootable installer into a compatible Mac.
- Use Startup Manager or Startup Disk preferences to select the bootable installer as the startup disk, then start up from it. Your Mac will start up to macOS Recovery.
Learn about selecting a startup disk, including what to do if your Mac doesn't start up from it. - Choose your language, if prompted.
- A bootable installer doesn't download macOS from the Internet, but it does require the Internet to get information specific to your Mac model, such as firmware updates. If you need to connect to a Wi-Fi network, use the Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar.
- 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 this path in Terminal:Catalina:
Mojave:
High Sierra:
Sierra:
El Capitan:
Tips
By William Gallagher
Tuesday, September 25, 2018, 10:59 am PT (01:59 pm ET)
Apple makes installing macOS very simple —if you only have one Mac. When you have many, it takes an unnecessarily protracted time. Circumvent Apple's installer and create your own using the Terminal.Tuesday, September 25, 2018, 10:59 am PT (01:59 pm ET)
We shouldn't complain. To install macOS Mojave on your Mac, you just download it and let Apple's installer do its job. Only, that installer is big —circa 6GB —so downloading it can take a time. And once it's run, Apple immediately deletes it. To install Mojave on a second or third or fourth Mac, you're supposed to re-download it to each one.
Given that we have lives as well as multiple Macs, we need to do something about this. Rather than working through Apple's installer, you download that once and stop it before it begins working. Then type some commands in Terminal to extract Mojave, and put the installer on an external drive so you can re-use it without having to download it every time..
This is one of the easiest uses of the Terminal program on Macs —but it still needs you to take care —and in this case to specifically copy and paste the instructions into it. A stray typo isn't likely to cause you problems, it's more likely to just not work, but it can.
Then, too, this is ultimately about installing a major macOS update onto all your Macs so that thought you had a moment ago about backups is spot on. Make a backup. Make two.
What you need
Get Apple's macOS Mojave installer and start downloading it. Most of us will get it from the Mac App Store but if you have a developer account, you can elect to get the latest beta from developer.apple.com instead.
While that download is happening, pick a drive —USB or Thunderbolt-connected —that you can use as a Mojave install disk. It will end up erased and with only the Mojave installer on it so really pick one you can spare.
If that's an SSD one then you'll be glad: the speed of the installation depends hugely on how fast your drive is.
Prepare the drive
Mount the drive or the volume that you want to do this on. That drive can be called anything you like but so that you can just copy and paste our Terminal instructions, rename it macinstall. You can rename it again later.
When Apple's macOS Mojave installation app is downloaded, launch it but don't let it start the installation process. Click on the Install macOS Mojave
![Dmg Dmg](/uploads/1/2/6/0/126058276/986572574.jpg)
Make a copy of Apple's installer. It'll be in your Applications folder with the name Install macOS Mojave. Copy it to another folder or drive just so that you know you never have to schlep through this downloading again —at least until next year.
Terminal velocity
With Apple's installer safely copied somewhere and the drive you want to make into a bootable installer ready and mounted, now you open Terminal.
It's in Applications
Mac Os Mojave Download File
, Utilities. It opens to a command line: copy and paste the following into it:sudo /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia—volume /Volumes/macinstall
Hit return and you'll be asked for your Mac admin password. When you enter that, Terminal starts running a program called createinstallmedia. It's an Apple program: they've created it for us all, they just haven't mentioned it much.
Terminal and createinstallmedia will remind you that this means erasing the drive and if you enter Y then it will start the process. First it erases the drive and you'll see it report '10% 20%' as it goes.
Then when that's done, it automatically copies the installer files —the Install macOS Mojave downloader from Apple —onto the drive. Lastly it makes that drive bootable.
What you end up with
Depending on the speed and age of both your Mac and your hard drives —both the spare and the one you're currently booted from —this could take anywhere up to 20 minutes.
After that, type exit into Terminal and when it says Process Completed then choose File, Quit.
Now you have a drive called macinstall. It's bootable and it contains only the macOS Mojave installer. That means you can eject that drive and take it to any or all Macs you've got. Plug it into each one in turn, reboot the Mac from it and run the Mojave installer.