create a bootable flash drive for mac os sierra

#Create a bootable flash drive for mac os sierra how to#
#Create a bootable flash drive for mac os sierra install#
#Create a bootable flash drive for mac os sierra download#

Using createinstallmedia in Terminal to create a Sierra installer drive. But I suspect that the vast ( vast) majority of people installing macOS 10.13 High Sierra or 10.12 Sierra will have access to a Mac running 10.7 or later. The only real drawback to createinstallmedia is that it doesn’t work under OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard-it requires OS X 10.7 Lion or later. Using it requires the use of Terminal, but it works well, it’s official, and the procedure is easy enough: If you can copy and paste, you can do it. Starting with Mavericks, hidden inside the OS X installer is a Unix program called createinstallmedia, provided by Apple specifically for creating a bootable installer drive. (If you’ve read this paragraph too late, and the installer has already deleted itself after an installation, you just need to re-download High Sierra r Sierra from the Mac App Store-via the Purchases tab-before you can make your bootable installer drive.) The easiest way is createinstallmedia So if you plan to run the installer before making your bootable installer drive, first make a copy of the Installer in another folder or on another drive so you have a safe copy before creating the bootable installer, move the copy back to the Applications folder.

#Create a bootable flash drive for mac os sierra install#

However, if you run the installer-say, to install the OS-from that location, the installer will delete itself after installation finishes.

#Create a bootable flash drive for mac os sierra download#

Important: When you download the High Sierra or Sierra installer from the Mac App Store, it will be saved to your main Applications folder (/Applications) it must be in that location for the procedure below to work. Your macOS user account must also have administrator privileges.

#Create a bootable flash drive for mac os sierra how to#

Macworld has a nice tutorial that explains how to properly format the drive. The installer drive must be formatted as a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) volume with a GUID Partition Table. To create a bootable High Sierra or Sierra installer drive, you just need the appropriate aforementioned installer and a Mac-formatted drive (a hard drive, solid-state drive, thumb drive, or USB stick) that’s big enough to hold the installer and all its data-an 8GB thumb drive is perfect. (Developers can get the current release version of High Sierra through the developer download site-scroll down to “Release Software.”) What you need You can get the latest version of the High Sierra or Sierra installer from the Mac App store. How do I get the High Sierra or Sierra installer? 2 Here’s this year’s version, for both macOS High Sierra (10.13) and macOS Sierra (10.12), of my annual how-to guide. 1 It’s great for installing the OS on multiple Macs, because you don’t have to download the ~5GB installer onto each computer, and it serves as a handy emergency disk if your Mac is experiencing problems. I’ve long recommended creating a bootable installer drive-on an external hard drive, thumb drive, or USB stick-for the version of macOS you’re running on your Mac.