How to create a bootable MacOS Sierra USB Drive

While it is true that Apple has a way to restore your Mac via the Internet, sometimes you don’t want to do that for one reason or another.

Their is a way to create a MacOS Sierra bootable USB Drive for local installations.  I’ll go step by step for those of you who have never made such a boot disk.

1. You’ll need a USB Drive with at least 10 Gigabytes of storage.
2. Download the Sierra set-up program.  Here is the direct link for it.
3. Open Disk Utility (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility).
4. Insert the USB Drive into a USB Port.
5. Format the USB drive as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), using the GUID Partition Mac scheme, and name it macOSSierra. This can be done from the Erase tab within the app; make sure that there are no multiple partitions (turn to the Partition tab to verify and correct this).
6. Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
7. At the prompt, (please feel free to copy and paste the below command)
8. sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/macOSSierra –applicationpath /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app –nointeraction.
9. Type in a password to begin the installation process.

Because this is considered a quick install the process will not show you a process bar.  This will usually take anywhere from 30 – 60 minutes depending on the speed of your USB port, the USB drive, and your computer.

It is recommended that you make a bootable USB Drive for quick recovery of your computer.

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Dan Uff

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