If you want to archive the installer file for later use, or use it to create a bootable USB drive, this file might not be sufficient. Luckily, there is a utility called macOS Catalina Patcher.
- Connect the macOS Catalina install drive to the target Mac. Hold down the OPTION key upon system boot, and continue holding Option until you see the Mac boot menu. Choose the macOS Catalina installer volume to boot from. The MacOS Catalina boot disk will allow you to install MacOS Catalina as an upgrade, and also to perform clean installations.
- How to Create macOS Catalina Bootable USB Flash Drive Installer Using Terminal Here’s how to create macOS Catalina 10.15 bootable USB flash drive installer for a clean install on your Mac. With macOS Catalina being Apple’s latest software release, it stands to reason that there is going to be a big interest in it.
- How to create a bootable macOS Catalina installer drive Put the macOS Catalina installer on an external USB thumb drive or hard drive and use it to install the operating system on a Mac. 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.
- And that should be it – your old Mac should boot straight into Catalina, and this should be a persistent install. If something went wrong, though, it's worth trying a different version of the patching tool from dosdude1.com; some of these apps are quite old, and maintenance appears to be pretty patchy.
macOS Catalina is a hugely exciting upgrade for the Mac. In some ways, it’s like having a completely new computer. You may have already taken the plunge and installed it, or maybe you’re waiting to see how it settles down before you install it. But whichever camp you’re in, it’s a good idea to create a bootable installer for macOS Catalina. That way, if anything goes badly wrong with your Mac, you’ll be able to boot from the installer and get going again quickly.
Why do I need a bootable installer for macOS Catalina?
There are a number of reasons for creating a bootable USB Mac installer.
There are a number of reasons for creating a bootable USB Mac installer.
- If you have more than one Mac, it allows you to install Catalina on all your other Macs without having to download it from the App Store each time.
- You may want to clean install Catalina, in which case you’ll completely wipe your startup disk and will need to boot from an external drive to do that.
- It’s good protection against a catastrophe striking your Mac’s startup disk, especially if you don’t have a stable internet connection. Normally, if you need to reinstall macOS, you can just boot from the recovery partition and do it from there. However, that means re-downloading the installer. So, if you don’t have an internet connection or it’s very slow, you need an alternative.
What should I use as a bootable installer?
You can use an external hard drive, an SSD or a USB stick. Anything that has at least 16 GB of free space. You’ll need to create a new partition (or container if it’s formatted as AFPS) for the installer so if you have data on it you need, you should copy it to another drive first.
How to create a bootable USB drive for macOS Catalina
Whoa! Not so fast. There’s one more thing you should do before you create the installer: clear out the junk on your Mac. Before you undertake any major task on your Mac, and especially before you install a new version of the operating system, you should clear out junk and old files you no longer need. I don’t normally recommend software tools, but in this case, the nest way to clear out the clutter is to use CleanMyMac X. It can scan your Mac at the press of a button, identify all the files you don’t need, and allow you to get rid of them with one more click. Here’s how to use it:
- Install, and launch CleanMyMac X — download a free edition here
- Choose Smart Scan from the list of utilities in the sidebar.
- Press Scan.
- When it’s finished, press Run to delete files immediately, or Review Details to see what it has found.
Once you’ve cleared out the clutter, you can go ahead and create your bootable installer. Here’s how:
- Launch the App Store app and search for macOS Catalina. (If you’re reading this before Catalina has been launched, you’ll need to use the public beta. You can sign up for Apple’s public beta program and download it here Apple Beta Software Program)
- When the results appear, click on Catalina, then click ‘Get’.
- Wait for it to download. When it’s finished, the installer will launch. Quit it immediately.
The installer has now been saved in your Applications folder. You can go ahead and check, if you like. You now have two options for creating the installer. If you’re comfortable with using Terminal, you can go ahead and jump to the instructions for that, below. If you’d rather not use Terminal, there’s a neat utility called Diskmaker X that will do it for you. All you need to do is download and install it and then, when you run it, point it to the macOS Catalina installer you just downloaded. There are full instructions on the download page.
How to create a bootable installer using Terminal
- Plug the USB stick, hard drive or SSD into your Mac.
- Go to Applications>Utilities and double-click Disk Utility to launch it.
- Select the disk you want to use for the installer and choose the Erase tab.
- Choose APFS or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) as the format and choose GUID partition map from the options, if it’s available.
- Give the disk a name and press Erase.
- When it’s finished, quit Disk Utility.
- Go to Applications>Utilities and double-click Terminal to launch it.
- Type:
sudo /Applications/Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia —volume /Volumes/Untitledwhere ‘Untitled’ is the name of your USB stick or external hard drive
- Press Return and wait for the word Done to appear in Terminal.
- Quit Terminal
You now have a macOS Catalina installer on an external disk or USB stick. Eject it, unplug it and keep it safe. You can use it to install Catalina on any Mac that supports it.
One more step: update applications
Once you’ve used tour new installer to install Catalina on a Mac, it’s a good idea to update all your applications so that that are Catalina compatible. You can do this manually, from the App Store and by launching non-App Store apps and choosing check for updates, but that’s a long and tedious process. It’s much quicker and easier to use the updates in CleanMyMac X. Here’s how you do it.
- Launch CleanMyMac X.
- Select the Updater tool in the Applications section.
- Press Select All.
- Press Update.
And that’s it. You’re done. CleanMyMac X checks all your installed apps for updates and then updates them all.
How To Create A Bootable Catalina Installer
Creating a bootable installer for macOS Catalina isn’t difficult. If you have a spare disk or USB stick and are comfortable using Terminal, you can do it right away. If you’d rather not use Terminal, use the Diskmaker X tool described above. Whichever method you use, make sure you use CleanMyMac X to clear out the junk on your Mac before you start, and use it again to update your applications when you’ve finished.
