
Choose the macOS Big Sur installer volume to boot from. Turn on the Mac by pressing the power button, and continue holdin the power button until you see the boot options menu. Restart the Mac if it’s already started up, otherwise boot it up as usual, then hold down the OPTION key on boot and select the MacOS Big Sur installer from the boot menuīooting Apple Silicon Mac with the MacOS Big Sur Install Driveīooting an ARM Mac with an install drive is slightly different:. Connect the installer drive to the target Mac. Booting an Intel Mac with the macOS Big Sur USB Install Drive You can use it like any other boot drive, and install or update MacOS with it as needed. That’s it, you’ve made the bootable USB drive for Big Sur. Confirm the syntax is correct, then hit return and authenticate with an admin password to begin the process of making the USB boot driveīuilding the USB bootable installer can take a while, so let it complete, you’ll see a little indicator in the command line to let you know when it has finished and reached 100% to finish at completion. Sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia -volume /Volumes/BigSurUSB -nointeraction
Enter the exact command at the Terminal, replacing “BigSurUSB” with the name of your USB thumb drive if you changed it:.
Open “Terminal” by hitting Command + Spacebar and typing ‘Terminal’ and hitting the return key, or open Terminal through the Utilities older. Connect the USB thumb drive to the Mac, name the drive something obvious like “BigSurUSB”. Download macOS Big Sur if you haven’t done so already. Backup your Mac and proceed at your own risk. Use exact syntax at the command line, as failure to do so can result in erasing the wrong volume. How to Create a Bootable macOS Big Sur Install Drive If you’re not comfortable with the command line, you can also use a tool like MDS to download installers and create boot disks with. If you’re not familiar with the command line, be sure to backup the Mac first, and to follow the instructions exactly. MacOS Big Sur compatible Mac to download and create the installer, and to install ontoīe aware this requires using the command line. A USB thumb drive (16GB minimum) – this will be formatted to become the macOS Big Sur installer. The “Install macOS Big Sur.app” installer application in the /Applications/ folder ( downloaded (you can re-download it if you need to from Big Sur). Whatever the reason you want one, let’s check out the process of making a bootable installer drive for macOS Big Sur.īefore getting started, you will need the following:
There are many useful reasons to have a bootable installer USB drive for macOS Big Sur, whether to perform updates, installs, clean installs, install onto multiple machines, have as a troubleshooting tool, and so much more.