Creating a Bootable MacOs Big Sur USB Installer Drive: A Step-by-Step Guide

To create a bootable MacOs Big Sur USB installer drive, you'll need to follow these steps. First, make sure your Mac is up-to-date with the latest software updates. Once you're done, open the Disk Utility app on your Mac. Here, you can create a new volume and install the MacOs Big Sur beta.

If you prefer to install the public version of MacOs Big Sur when it becomes available, you don't need to follow these steps. However, if you want to try out the beta version now, creating a separate volume for the installation is recommended. In this case, select "Create a new volume" and call it "beta". Then, install the MacOs Big Sur beta on this new volume.

Once the public version of MacOs Big Sur becomes available, you'll have options to upgrade your existing installation, create a new volume, or delete your current installation and start from scratch. The choice is yours. Now that we've created our separate volume for the installation, let's proceed with installing MacOs Big Sur.

To begin the installation process, select "Install MacOs" in the Disk Utility app. You'll be asked to choose where you want to install MacOs. You can either upgrade your existing installation or create a new one on this separate volume. For this example, we'll choose to create a new volume and install MacOs Big Sur on it.

Click "Continue" to proceed with the installation. Next, you'll be asked to agree to the terms of service and select your country or region. The app will then walk you through the installation process for MacOs Big Sur. Make sure you're connected to a power source during this time, as the installation can take several minutes.

The installation process involves creating an APFS volume, which is the new file system introduced by Apple in 2015. This process may take around 30-45 minutes, depending on various factors such as your Mac's hardware and internet connection speed.

Once the installation is complete, you'll be asked to restart your Mac and sign in with your user account. After signing in, your Mac will boot up and display the Setup Utility app. Here, you can select your language, set up any additional features, and complete the initial setup process for MacOs Big Sur.

Creating a bootable USB installer drive is a handy tool to have around, especially if you're planning to install MacOs on multiple devices in the future. To find the Disk Utility app on your Mac, you can search for it in Spotlight or navigate to Applications > Utilities. Simply follow these steps, and you'll be creating bootable USB installer drives like a pro.

To create a bootable USB installer drive, plug in a USB drive and hold the Option key while powering on your Mac. Hold the Option key until the startup selector appears. Select "Install MacOs Big Sur" from the list of available operating systems, and press Return to begin the installation process. The installation will then proceed as described above.

It's worth noting that creating a bootable USB installer drive is not necessary if you're planning to upgrade your existing MacOs installation when the public version of MacOs Big Sur becomes available. However, having this tool at your disposal can be extremely convenient, especially in situations where you need to install MacOs on multiple devices or need to try out beta software.

To appreciate this guide and help others find it, please leave a thumbs up and share your thoughts in the comment section below. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more tutorials and guides on using Macs and other Apple products.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- How's it going ladies and gentlemenin this video I'm gonna show youhow to create a MacOs BigSur USB Installer drivethis bootable USB drive is super simpleand super easy to create.I'm gonna show you how to do it right now.Check it out.- Thanksfor watching 9to5Mac.Be sure to thumbs up,click the subscribe buttonand then enable notificationswith the bell iconso you won't miss any upcoming videos.Okay, so the first step is tocreate the USB Installer driveand I'm using this drive from SanDisk.It includes a USB A and USB C connection.So it's super handy to use.Connect the drive to your Mac,you wanna make sure there'snothing on this drivethat you need to save becauseeverything will be erased.You wanna at least an eight gigabyte drivefor this USB Installer.The next step is to downloadthe MacOs Big Sur installer.Now once this goes live in public,you can find it on the App Store.But before that, you can alsodownload it in beta form.You can download it from beta.apple.com.You'll of course need toenroll in the beta program.Or if you're a developer,you can download it from Apple'sdeveloper portal as well.So three options there.Number one, Mac AppStore once it goes live,number two beta.apple.comfor the public beta.And number three, if you're a developer,you can download it that way.So doesn't matter whichversion you download,because once you downloadthe MacOs Big Sur installer,you're going to see somethingthat looks like this.And this is beta becauseit's the beta version,but on the public version,it'll just say MacOs Big Sur.So once you see this installerappear on screen after downloading,you can just close the installer outby going to the menu barand selecting quit install MacOs,and that'll close out of the installer.The next step is to open up Disk Utilityin applications utilities.You can find it via Launchpadby going to the other folder,and then open up and findyour drive in Disk Utility.It's gonna be under the external section.Just click on that.Now what I like to do do is to right clickand select Show and finderjust to make sure there'snothing on that drivethat you wanna save.Because like I said,we're gonna remove and deleteeverything on that drive.So you wanna select thedrive click the erase button,because we wanna make sure this thingis formatted as MacOs Extended journaled.You cannot use an APFS formatted driveto create this installer.So once you have MacOsExtended journaled selected,click the erase button,you can have it named anything by the way,doesn't really matter.Go ahead and click Done.And now we can closeout of the disk utility.The next step is to open up our finderclick on applications.You wanna find where itsays install MacOs Big Sur,you wanna right click on the installerand then select show package contents.Open up the contentsfolder, open up resources,and then find where itsays create install media.So just keep your place here.We're gonna come back tothe Finder in just a second.The next step to openup a terminal window,you can find that in theapplication Utilities folder,you can also get to itquickly from Launchpadby going to the other folderand selecting terminal.So here we are.In the terminal window youwanna type sudo s-u-d-o space.So let's do it now, s-u-d-o,and then press space on thespace bar to create a space.Now go back to finder anddrag create install mediaover to the terminal windowlike this and release.That will paste the pathof create install mediaright in the terminal window.And the space will automaticallybe added afterwards.Now you wanna type dash, dashvolume and then another space.So your terminal windowshould look just like this.Now go back to finderand then you wanna go up tothe menu bar and select Go.Go to folder and thentype forward slash volumesand then click Go.This will show all themounted volumes on your Mac.All right, so there we go.There's untitled.That's the name of the diskthat we just formatted in Disk Utility.And it's always a good ideato double click on that drive,make sure that's the actual drive.There's nothing there.Okay, so now we wanna drag thisvolume over to the terminal,and release, it's going topaste in the volume location,just like that.And now we're ready to go.So that's all we need to get started,we're gonna go ahead and closeout of the Finder window.Let's zoom in here on the terminal window,because we're gonna be focused herefor the next few minutes.So you wanna press return on your keyboardto submit the command intoyour administrator password,and then press return.And then it's gonna ask if you are surethat you want to continue.So you wanna press the Y keyon your keyboard to acceptand then press return.It's going to erase the disk first,and then it's gonna copyall the installer datato that USB drive.And this is gonna take a whileI've sped it up considerably.So just be patient,it's gonna take severalminutes to complete.Now it makes the disk bootablecopies over the boot files.And there we go. We're done.Now, like I said, I've sped this up a lot,so it's gonna take youa little bit longer.So just be patient.But this is what you should seeonce everything's completed.Now we can close out of the terminal.So we can actually open upthat drive in the Finderand see that now it isnot untitled anymore,but yes, it is the MacOsinstaller, for Big Sur.Alright, so the next step is to alterthe Secure Boot settingsfor the destination Mac.So with our Mac powered off,I'm holding the command andR key while firing up our Macit automatically turns on the laptop.So you wanna wait about fiveseconds into the Apple logo,then you can release it'llboot into recovery mode.We need to go in here and altersome of the startup security settings,to allow us to boot from that USB drive.So MacOs recovery is gonnaask you for the passwordfor the user you select.We're gonna just enter that right now.All right, so here weare in MacOs utilities,we actually just wannago up to the menu barand select utilities in the minibar,because we wanna find thestartup security utility.So click on that,and then you'll haveto authenticate again.So we'll go ahead and authenticate.Just go ahead and click whereit says enter MacOs password,select your user there, andthen put in your password.All right, click Okay. And here it is.So the first section is for secure boot.And then the second sectionis for allowed boot media.So under secure boot, wewanna select medium securityand this will allowany version of signoperating system softwareever trusted by Apple.Now when I try to boot witha full security enabled,I was basically put in a loopin the T2 chip basicallywould not allow me to proceed.And also be sure to checkallow booting from externalor removable media.Once you have those two options selected,you can go ahead and close outof this secure startup utility.But make sure it looks like this,especially that last optionfor allow booting from removable media,you definitely need that checked.Otherwise, you won't be able to bootfrom the USB drive at all.So now that that's done,you wanna go ahead andplug in your USB drive,hold the Option key whilepowering on your Mac,and you wanna hold optionuntil that startup selector appears,which is right here.So I have my normal Macintosh HD drive.And I also have install MacOs Big Sur.So we wanna select Install MacOs Big Sur,and then press return on the keyboard.This is gonna boot from that USB drive.And that's what's happening right nowbooting directly from this USB drive.Which will allow me toinstall MacOs Big sur.So initially, it's going toboot into MacOs recovery.And here we go.And I'm gonna speed thisportion up just a little bit.Alright, so now I'm gonnago ahead and select my userand click Next.Enter my user password.And here we are.So since this is a beta, I liketo create a separate volumeand install the beta there.So I'm just gonna go to disk utilityand I'm gonna create a new volumespecifically for the Big Sur beta.Now, once the public version comes out,you don't have to do thisif you don't want to,you can just upgradedirectly to MacOs Big Surand place that right onyour current hard driveif you wish to do that.But here I'm just goinginto the Disk Utility,I'm creating a new volume,and I'm gonna call it beta in this case.And I'm going to installthe MacOs Big Sur beta,right here on this volume.Now once the public versionof MacOs Big Sur comes out,you have options,you can create a newvolume as I've done here,you can upgrade yourexisting MacOs installation,or you can delete your MacOsinstall and start from scratch.It's up to you.So now we're going toinstall MacOs Big Sur.So just select Install MacOsand then click Continue.And then this is going to give us optionsas to where we want to deploy the install.Alright, so you just wannaclick Continue again.Alright, now click Agree,and then click Agree again.And now it's gonna ask youwhere you want to install MacOs.You can install it ownyour current existingin that space that'll begoing to perform an upgrade.Or you can do like I didcreate a new APFS volume,I selected beta, which is mynew volume, click Continue,and then click Continue again.And that will begin theinstallation of MacOs Big Sur.So right now everything's been deployedfrom this USB Installer drive.And this will take a whilethis is gonna take several minutes.And when I say minutes,I'm meaning more like halfan hour to 45 minutes,depending on various factors,but just be patient in other words.I've sped this up a whole lot,multiple times overhere to get through it.So you're not sitting here waiting.I just wanted to show you the end resultof what you can expect.And in just a second, there we go.We'll see the Setup Utilityhere in just a second.And there we go.So there's the Setup Utilityasking you to selectyour country or regionand that will walk you throughthe MacOs installation for Big Sur.So ladies and gentlemen, therereally isn't that much to it.It's a pretty simple exercisecreating that USB Installer drive.Just really handy to have that available.Just tuck it somewherewhere you can always find itjust in case you happen to need it.So ladies and gentlemen, ifyou appreciated this video,leave me a thumbs upthat helps other people find it as well.And let me know what you thinkdown below in the comment section.This is Jeff with the 9to5Mac.(soft music)\n"