If you have more than one Mac you want to upgrade to macOS 10.15 Catalina but don't want to waste so much bandwidth downloading it for each machine, one option is to create a bootable installer on a spare USB flash drive. Here's how to do it with the Terminal.
Jun 23, 2020 Atom for Mac. Free GitHub Mac. MacOS Catalina macOS Mojave macOS High Sierra macOS Sierra OS X El Capitan OS X Yosemite OS X Mavericks Download Information; File.
One of the problems with the release of a major operating system update like macOS Catalina is the amount of times it has to be downloaded. As Apple usually intends each Mac or MacBook needing to be updated to download it, the process isn't really efficient enough for instances where many Mac desktops need the upgrade, like in a school or business if there isn't device management or macOS Content Caching for whatever the reason.
Teletype for Atom. Great things happen when developers work together—from teaching and sharing knowledge to building better software. Teletype for Atom makes collaborating on code just as easy as it is to code alone, right from your editor. Apple has just dropped the new version of macOS, macOS Catalina, which was introduced back in June during the WWDC 2019 keynote. And like previous years, many users are looking for direct download links for macOS Catalina, rather than going the usual route via System Preferences or the Mac.
The strain could also be felt by users who own multiple Macs but also have a limited data allowance from their Internet provider, or a small amount of bandwidth that could make updating multiple machines take a very long time and saturate the available connection.
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While in the olden days it was possible to get the software update on physical media, Apple doesn't offer that option anymore. However, it is still possible to create your own media, such as a spare USB thumb drive, that can do the same job.
The first hurdle is to actually get the macOS Catalina installer onto a Mac. This is an unavoidable part of the process and will require just over 8 gigabytes of drive capacity to store.
Go to the Mac App Store and search for Catalina using the search bar, then click on View next to the macOS Catalina listing. Alternately, open the Mac App Store Preview page for macOS Catalina here then select View in Mac App Store.
Click on Get. This will load up the Software Update utility, which will ask if you want to download macOS Catalina. Click Download.
After the download has finished, macOS will automatically start the installer. Press Command-Q to quit the installer before it continues, as the update will be deleted upon installation.
Creating the Bootable Drive
You need an external drive to turn into a bootable version, and since it needs to be portable, your best choice is a USB thumb drive with a capacity of 16GB or more. Be aware that the drive will be wiped as part of the process, so ensure there isn't any precious data on the drive that could be lost if it isn't backed up elsewhere.
Connect the external drive to your Mac, and make a note of the external drive's name as it appears within macOS. This is important, as using the wrong name could lead to another connected drive being wiped by mistake.
Open Terminal within the Utilities folder within the Applications folder and enter in the following command by copying and pasting it directly into the window. Make sure to change the element titled 'USBdrive' for the name of the drive you intend to become the bootable installer.
sudo /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia — volume /Volumes/USBdrive — /Applications/Install macOS Catalina.app
Once pasted and corrected, press enter, then enter your password for macOS and press enter again.
Terminal will then warn of the USB drive being wiped as part of the process. Type 'Y' and press enter. Leave the Mac alone as it formats and copies over the installer.
Once Terminal says 'Install media now available,' it is safe to right-click the removable drive on the desktop renamed 'Install macOS Catalina' and select the 'Eject' command. It is now safe to remove the drive from the Mac.
Upgrading another Mac
Before proceeding, ensure there are adequate backups available for the Mac you are about to upgrade before the process starts.
With the target Mac you want to upgrade turned off, connect your external drive. When turning on the Mac, hold down the Option key on the connected keyboard to bring up the Startup Manager.
The Startup Manager is used to boot from a different drive from the default. In this case, select 'Install macOS Catalina.'
The Mac will then bring up a macOS Utilities window. To perform a straight update, select 'Install macOS' and follow the prompts.
The macOS Utilities menu also allows you to erase the Mac's drive, which you can optionally do if you do not wish to save any of the data and want a completely clean slate for the installation.
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Attempting to download macOS Catalina from the Mac App Store you may find that a small version of the “Install macOS Catalina.app” file downloads to the “Applications” folder, rather than the complete 8.1 GB installer file.
The tiny (just tens of megabytes) incomplete installer requires an internet connection during usage to download the rest of the Catalina update files. Additionally, it does not allow to create a macOS Catalina USB installer drive for use on multiple computers.
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In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to download the complete “Install macOS Catalina.app” file from Apple server using the “macOS Catalina Patcher” app instead of via the Mac App Store.
A similar mini-installer issue occurred previously with some users getting a tiny incomplete macOS High Sierra installer and macOS Mojave installer too and I covered a similar workaround here and here to download the complete installer file from Apple server.
About the app
In this workaround, we’re going to use the macOS Catalina Patcher app from the dosdude1.com. This app is intended for those with unsupported Macs and Hackintosh users, but any Mac user can use the app to be able to download the complete macOS Catalina installer file from Apple server. For our purposes in this particular walkthrough, we will use the app only to download the complete installer file.
Note! This method relies on a third party app from an unverified third party source. If you are not comfortable with using unvetted and unverified software, do not follow this process.
Let’s begin
Downloading the complete “Install macOS Catalina.app” file from Apple server using the “macOS Catalina Patcher” app is a really easy process. Now, step by step guide.
Go to the official website of the “macOS Catalina Patcher” app here and download the app.
The download link is labeled as “Download Latest Version” on that page.
Launch the “macOS Catalina Patcher” app.
Note! By default, macOS preventing apps from unidentified developers or sources from being launched. So you most likely will get an alert message that says: “macOS Catalina Patcher.app can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer”. To allow just one specific app to run do the following:
- Hold down the
Control
key and click the app icon. From the contextual menu chooseOpen
. - A popup will appear asking you to confirm this action. Click the
Open
button.
Click the “Continue” button, and then select “Download a Copy”.
Confirm that you want to download the “Install macOS Catalina.app” app to start the download to your hard drive.
Close the “macOS Catalina Patcher” app when the download is complete and locate the “Install macOS Catalina.app” file you downloaded.
Note! The download will be completed when you are prompted to choose an installation method. See the screenshot below.
Conclusion
That’s it, you’re done. Now you have the complete “Install macOS Catalina.app” file downloaded. So simple isn’t it?
You can confirm that you have the complete “Install macOS Catalina.app” file by getting info on the file. For this simply select the file and click the
Spacebar
key (or right-click on the file and choose “Get Info”). The complete installer should be around 8.1 GB rather than the tiny (just tens of megabytes) incomplete installer that requires additional downloads.Note! Remember, the “Install macOS Catalina.app” file deletes itself automatically after macOS Catalina has successfully installed. Therefore, you may want to make a backup by having previously copied it to external storage.
Let me know in the comments section if you know another way to download the complete “Install macOS Catalina.app” file rather than the tiny incomplete installer.
I hope this article has helped you learn how to downloaded the complete “Install macOS Catalina.app” file from Apple server. If this article helped you then please leave a comment
Thanks for reading!
Arthur is a designer and full stack software engineer. He is the founder of Space X-Chimp and the blog My Cyber Universe. His personal website can be found at arthurgareginyan.com.
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