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.
Method 1: Create macOS Catalina Bootable USB on Windows 10 via DMG Editor There are more than one solutions to create macOS Catalina Bootable USB on Windows 10 and we will go with easy one first. DMG Editor, a popular app developed by UUByte, is a multi-functional and cross-platform image burning tool that works on Windows, Linux and macOS. Follow the below steps in order to create a bootable macOS Catalina USB Drive. Format your USB Drive:. Connect your USB drive to the USB port of your computer. Press Command+ Space to launch spotlight, type in ‘Disk Utility,” and press the return to launch the app. Search for your USB drive under the sidebar of the Disk utility app.
Why do I need a bootable installer for macOS Catalina?
- How to create a bootable installer using Terminal. Plug the USB stick, hard drive or SSD into your Mac. Go to ApplicationsUtilities and double-click Disk Utility to launch it. Select the disk you want to use for the installer and choose the Erase tab.
- Apple's next operating system, macOS 10.15 Catalina, has now been through a few beta revisions and had its public beta release. We thought this would be a good time to show you how to make a USB installer for the new OS, for test deployment to your Macs.
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/Untitled
where ‘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.
Create Catalina Usb On Windows
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.
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.
2019 is one of the great years for computer users and smartphones user. Because the world of technology is now in progress, as we know that in 2019 Apple Inc announced in world developers conference, macOS Catalina. Therefore, besides macOS Catalina announced iOS 13 with its significant new features. And with the announcing of macOS Catalina Microsoft also announced its new updates for the public, Windows 10 new features, with the same equality of macOS Catalina or macOS Mojave Dark Look and Light Look. And for Samsung smartphones, they announced the Android P version. However, we got the idea to install macOS Catalina 10.15 on VirtualBox and VMware. And here I will show you How to Create a macOS Catalina USB Drive installer. The way of creating a macOS Catalina USB installer is easy the same as macOS Mojave.
Create macOS Catalina USB Installer
However, the macOS Catalina version for the operating system is still not released for the public. But they can upgrade there macOS Mojave version directly through the internet into macOS Catalina 10.15. In July 2019 they will release the full version for Macintosh users. By the way, while installing any kind of operating system on a computer you need a Bootable USB Drive, and here I will show you the easiest way just follow the steps and read the article.
As you know there are different kinds of creating macOS Catalina 10.15 USB Drive. But one of the easiest ways to create Bootable USB using Terminal on macOS, whether you can use Disk Utility. I recommend you to choose Disk Utility because the procedure is a bit easy. And using Terminal is somehow complicated.
Create macOS Catalina USB Installer – System requirements of macOS Catalina 10.15
Before checking macOS Catalina on your system, there are some good points to know about your Mac computer version. However, macOS Catalina is heavy and for its installation, you need a nice computer, with high graphics, Processor, and RAM. Below I will declare some Mac computers that you can install macOS Catalina 10.15 on it.
- MacBook: 2015 or newer
- MacBook: Air, MacBook Pro 2012 or newer
- Mac Mini: Late 2012 or newer
- iMac: 2012 or newer
- iMac Pro: All models can support macOS Catalina 10.15
- Mac Pro: 2013 or newer
The great changes that come on macOS Catalina 10.15 Beta are:
- Catalyst
- Gatekeeper
- Voice Control
- Sidebar
- Changes in Application
- iTunes
- Find My Mac
- Reminders
- Removed Components
macOS Catalina creating USB Drive required files:
- At least 16 GB USB drive or more than 16 GB
- macOS Catalina 10.15 image file
By the way, if you don’t know the ways of installing macOS Catalina on VirtualBox and VMware Player. However, You can also check the below links and download macOS Catalina 10.15 Virtual machine images.
Download macOS Catalina 10.15 Beta 1
- Step #1. Enter to Apple Developer, and go ahead for download macOS Catalina or if you are not a member of Apple developer. Then go ahead and create an account to download macOS Catalina 10.15 Beta 1.
- Step #2. After signing in Apple Developer, go ahead and under featured click on download link.
- Step #3. After that, download is finished get start
In this case, you have gone through Apple Developer to download the latest update of macOS Catalina. Therefore, from Apple Developer you can use upgrading from macOS Mojave to macOS Catalina 10.15. Remember one thing upgrading can be risky for you so, I suggest to have a backup of your important files. However, in the next step you must have a clean installation of macOS Catalina on your computer. For that, you need a Bootable created USB. And insert the USB drive to your computer, then install macOS Catalina and enjoy using the new and fresh operating system.
How to create macOS Catalina USB Installer
- Step #1. Insert the USB drive to your computer.
- Step #2. I mentioned above also that the process of creating a macOS Catalina USB drive with Disk Utility is easy. Therefore, go to the search bar and type there “Disk Utility”. Erase USB drive with “Mac OS Extended (Journaled)” then complete the process of Disk Utility for macOS Catalina USB Drive.
Format the USB Drive
- After the USB Drive, formatted click Done
Click Done
- Now navigate to search spotlight and type “Terminal” then hit enter.
- When the terminal opened copy the below command and paste into the terminal then press enter. The process of creating will take some minute, wait until it should complete 100%. When it completed close the terminal window.
Install Catalina On Usb Drive
Copy the command
Once the Bootable USB drive is created, open the clover configurator. With the clover configurator, you need to mount the EFI partition. When the clover configurator opened on the left-handed click on “Mount EFI”, then Mount the EFI on install macOS 10.15 Beta. Click on “Mount Partition” then type the password and click OK.
Install Catalina On Usb Ssd
Mount Partition
Catalina Usb On Windows
Catalina Usb Maker
Bottom Line
By the way, that’s all about How to create a macOS Catalina USB Installer. And the process of creating macOS Catalina Beta USB Installer is easy, and I also explained that step by step. Therefore, if you faced any kind of problem feel free and comment below. Give us feedback and subscribe to our Blog.