How to create your own bootable macOS 10.14 Mojave USB installation drive

Apple has not shipped operating systems on physical media for nearly a decade, but there is still good reason to want an old reliable USB key for macOS Mojave. Fortunately, it's not difficult to create one, either with a convenient graphical user interface or light terminal use. Here is what you need to get started.

• A Mac that you have administrator access to. We've created a Mojave USB drive from High Sierra and Mojave, but your experience with other versions may vary.
• An 8 GB or larger USB flash drive or a partition of 8 GB or more on another type of external drive. A USB 3.0 drive will dramatically speed things up, but an older USB 2.0 drive will work in no time.
• The macOS 10.14 Mojave installer from the Mac App Store in your Applications folder. The installer will remove itself when you install the operating system, but you can download it again if necessary.
• If you want a graphical interface, look MacDaddy's Install Slow Creator. There are other applications that do this, but this one is quick and easy.

If you want to use this USB installer with new Macs right out of the box, you will need to periodically download new Mojave installers and regularly install new installations. Apple supports recent hardware in new point-in-time versions of macOS right out of the box, which will help you keep your installation disk as universal and versatile as possible.

There is also a new consideration for new Macs with the Apple T2 controller chip – to date, the iMac Pro and the two 2018 MacBook Pro. Among the many security features of this chip, there is one that forbids booting from external disks by default. To re-enable this feature, hold down the Command-R key as your Mac restarts to access recovery mode, and then use the Startup utility to allow booting from an external media. If you are trying to install an older version of macOS, you may also need to go from full security to medium security to allow booting, but if you are simply trying to install the current version of macOS, the complete security option should be fine.

The easy way

Once you have obtained all the necessary hardware, connect the USB drive to your Mac and launch Install Disk Creator. This application is simply a graphic envelope for terminal control, so it should be possible to make installation disks for MacOS versions since Lion. In any case, it will work very well for our purposes.

Install Disk Creator will automatically detect macOS installers on your drive and suggest one, displaying its icon with its path. You can navigate to another if you want, and you can also choose from all the devices and storage volumes currently connected to your Mac via the drop-down menu at the top of the window. Once you are ready, click on "Create an installation program" and wait. A progress bar at the bottom of the application will tell you where you need to go and a notification will inform you of the end of the process. This should only take a few minutes on a USB 3.0 stick in a modern Mac, although the use of USB 2.0 or other interfaces slows things down.

The only slightly less easy way

The Install Disk Creator program is just an envelope for terminal control to create macOS installation disks. If you can format your USB drive and open a terminal window, it's almost as simple. Assuming you have the macOS Mojave installer in your Applications folder and you have a USB drive in Mac OS Extended (journaled) format (ie HFS + and do not APFS) named "Untitled" mounted on the system, you can create a Mojave installation drive with the help of the following command.

sudo # / Applications / Install macOS Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia' --volume / Volumes / Untitled --nointeraction --downloadassets

The command will erase the disk and copy the installation files. Give yourself some time and your volume will soon be loaded with not only the macOS installation program, but also an external recovery partition that can be useful if your hard drive dies and you are far from it. ;an Internet connection. If you want to create an installation drive for a macOS version other than Mojave, simply adjust the paths above to refer to Sierra or High Sierra.

Whichever method you use, you should be able to boot from your new USB key by modifying the default boot disk in System Preferences or by holding down the Option key at startup and selecting the drive. Once started, you can install or upgrade Mojave as you normally would. You can also use Safari, Disk Utility, or Time Machine from the recovery partition to restore backups or troubleshoot problems.