How to Make a Bootable USB Mac OS / macOS Installer 10.4 – 12.4 (2022)

First of all, why? — In my case, we needed a bootable OS X installer to wipe an old iMac to be processed for surplus/ewaste. Periodically we get old machines no longer supported, and need to wipe the drives prior to dispossession. I also like to install a clean copy of the latest supported OS, partially to overwrite part of the drive, but also in case it finds a new home somewhere.

10.4 Tiger, 10.5 Leopard, and 10.6 Snow Leopard

With 10.6 Snow Leopard and earlier, you can simply restore the dmg/iso image onto your installation medium.
Note: Most PPC Macs cannot boot from USB, you may need to use a (powered) external hard drive, or burn to a DVD.
DMG/ISOs may be available from sites like archive.org or isoriver.com (obtaining from anywhere other than Apple directly, is 100% at your own risk!)

10.7 Lion and 10.8 Mountain Lion

The installers is no longer available in the App Store, so download Installer from Apple:
- 10.7 Lion: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2077
- 10.8 Mountain Lion: https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2076
Double click to mount the DMG to mount it.
Open Terminal.app and run the following commands:

$ cd /Volumes/Install\ Mac\ OS\ X $ mkdir ~/Desktop/MtLion $ cp InstallMacOSX.pkg ~/Desktop/MtLion $ cd ~/Desktop/MtLion $ mv InstallMacOSX.pkg InstallMacOSX.xar $ xar -xf InstallMacOSX.xar $ mv InstallMacOSX.pkg/InstallESD.dmg . $ asr imagescan --source InstallESD.dmg $ sudo asr restore --source InstallESD.dmg --target /dev/disk3s2 –-erase

Mind the space+period at the end of line 7.
Make sure to choose the proper volume in line 9.
Similar process (file paths will differ slightly) for 10.7 Lion.
https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2077

10.9 Mavericks

The ESD dmg file is available here: https://archive.org/details/install-os-x-mavericks.app
Follow a similar process above.

10.10 Yosemite and later, through 12.4 Monterey

Installer dmg(s) available here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
Mount the dmg, inside is a PKG, which basically just installs the installer.
Generally, just use the createinstallmedia method, as described here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372
Note that “--applicationpath...” is required for Sierra and earlier.

$ sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

$ sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ Sierra.app

$ sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

$ sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Mojave.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

$ sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

$ sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Big\ Sur.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

$ sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume

Note that “--applicationpath...” is required for Sierra and earlier, but not for High Sierra and later.
Something is broken in the Sierra installer, and createinstallmedia was giving me an error “not a valid mount point“. Thanks to a MacRumors forum post from user: EricFromCanada, the following command will edit a plist file, and it should work:

$ sudo plutil -replace CFBundleShortVersionString -string "12.6.03" Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Info.plist
$ sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ Sierra.app

You now theoretically can make a bootable installer for every version of OS X/macOS from 10.4 Tiger through 12.4 Monterey.

Other notes

Along the way, for versions of macOS that have expired certificates, I found two semi-manual processes to make USB Installation Media. In the end, while they did “work,” I did not need to employ these methods, but they may come in handy the next time the certificates expire.

Centurios Blog method:

$ cd /Volumes/Install\ OS\ X $ mkdir ~/Desktop/Yosemite $ cp InstallMacOSX.pkg ~/Desktop/Yosemite $ cd ~/Desktop/Yosemite $ pkgutil --expand InstallMacOSX.pkg yosemite $ ls -F yosemite Distribution* InstallMacOSX.pkg/ Resources/ $ cd yosemite/InstallMacOSX.pkg/ $ tar -xvf Payload ...file listing... $ mv InstallESD.dmg Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/SharedSupport/ $ sudo Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia" --volume /Volumes/Yosemite --applicationpath Install\ OS\ X\ Yosemite.app

If the above doesn’t work for 10.10 and greater, there is another more manual process here, but there’s some funkiness with the installation:

$ cd /Volumes/Install\ OS\ X $ mkdir ~/Desktop/Yosemite $ cp InstallMacOSX.pkg ~/Desktop/Yosemite $ cd ~/Desktop/Yosemite % mv InstallMacOSX.pkg InstallMacOSX.xar $ xar -xf InstallMacOSX.xar $ mv InstallMacOSX.pkg/InstallESD.dmg . $ hdiutil attach InstallESD.dmg $ cp /Volumes/OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/BaseSystem.dmg . $ asr imagescan --source BaseSystem.dmg $ sudo asr restore --source BaseSystem.dmg --target /dev/disk3s2 –-erase $ rm /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Installation/Packages $ cp -R /Volumes/OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/Packages /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Installation/ $ cp -R /Volumes/OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/BaseSystem* /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/

Sources: