It was 2009 when Apple last released a new operating system on physical media. Things have proceeded remarkably smoothly since version 10.7 switched to download-only installers, but there are still good reasons to want an old, reliable USB stick. For instance, if you find yourself doing multiple installs, a USB drive may be faster than multiple downloads (especially if you use a USB 3.0 drive). Or maybe you need a recovery disk for older Macs that don't support the Internet Recovery feature. Whatever the reason, you're in luck, because it's not hard to make one.
As with last year, there are two ways to get it done. There's the super easy way with the graphical user interface and the only slightly less easy way that requires some light Terminal use. Here's what you need to get started.
Download El Capitan.DMG from here. Download DiskMaker X. To do in Windows, we already shared a very specific instruction from here: Make Bootable Installation USB from Mac OS X.DMG on Windows PC. At for Mac users, there will be 2 doable methods. METHOD 1: Using DiskMaker X. Run, DiskMaker X, then.choose El Capitan (10.11). Select version of OS X (in our case El Capitan) Select copy of OS X installation app. Select USB drive that will be used for USB installation. And wait a few minutes till the the DiskMaker X finish creating process. To install OS X El Capitan restart computer hold the Option key and select Installation USB drive from the menu. Apr 27, 2021 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. Apple's latest update to Mac OS X, 10.11 El Capitan, is currently available in the Mac App Store for everyone to download and install at no cost. The new OS features Split View mode for better multitasking, a cleaner Mission Control, smarter Spotlight, a way to mute Safari tabs playing audio, enhanced Mail and Notes apps, and more.
Once you've obtained all of the necessary materials, connect the USB drive to your Mac and run the Diskmaker X app. The app will offer to make installers for OS X 10.9, 10.10, and 10.11, and it should run on OS X versions all the way back to 10.7—support for 10.6 was dropped in the most recent release.
AdvertisementDiskmaker X has actually been around since the days of OS X 10.7 (it was previously known as Lion Diskmaker), and it's still the easiest GUI-based way to go without intimidating newbies. If you're comfortable with the command line, it's still possible to create a disk manually using a Terminal command, which we'll cover momentarily.
Select OS X 10.11 in Diskmaker X, and the app should automatically find the copy you've downloaded to your Applications folder. It will then ask you where you want to copy the files—click 'An 8GB USB thumb drive' if you have a single drive to use or 'Another kind of disk' to use a partition on a larger drive or some other kind of external drive. Choose your disk (or partition) from the list that appears, verify that you'd like to have the disk (or partition) erased, and then wait for the files to copy over. The process is outlined in screenshots above.
If you don't want to use Diskmaker X, Apple has actually included a terminal command that can create an install disk for you. Assuming that you have the OS X El Capitan installer in your Applications folder and you have a Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)-formatted USB drive named 'Untitled' mounted on the system, you can create an El Capitan install drive by typing the following command into the Terminal.
sudo /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app --nointeraction
The command will erase the disk and copy the install files over. Give it some time, and your volume will soon be loaded up with not just the OS X installer but also an external recovery partition that may come in handy if your hard drive dies and you're away from an Internet connection.
Whichever method you use, you should be able to boot from your new USB drive either by changing the default Startup Disk in System Preferences or by holding down the Option key at boot and selecting the drive. Once booted, you'll be able to install or upgrade El Capitan as you normally would.
These advanced steps are primarily for system administrators and people 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 it on multiple computers without having to download the installer each time.
MyVolume
in these commands with the name of your volume.Big Sur:*
Catalina:*
Mojave:* Skyrim white armor mod.
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 was done in the command for El Capitan.
After typing the command:
Y
to confirm that you want to erase the volume, then press Return. Terminal displays the progress as the volume is being erased.Determine whether you're using a Mac with Apple silicon, then follow the appropriate steps:
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.
For information about the createinstallmedia
command and the arguments you can use with it, make sure the macOS installer is in your Applications folder, then enter the appropriate path in Terminal: