#Format usb stick for mac install

While waiting for the download, let’s move on to the next step – formatting your thumb drive. Note: Download will take around 10 minutes to a few hours, depending on your internet connection. Next, click Get > Download to initiate downloading. Note: Clicking on any of the above links will launch the App Store, which brings you to the official download page of the specific macOS.

OS X El Capitan – Click this link, scroll down to to step 4 and click “Download OS X El Capitan”.

Let’s start with this first as the downloading of the macOS installer file may take a while.Ĭlick on the following links to choose which macOS’s installer file you would like to download: Whether you want to reinstall the latest macOS Catalina, or you want to revert or downgrade to Mojave, or High Sierra, you will need to decide now as it dictates which installer file you will be downloading in a second.

I would suggest you to get the one with a capacity of 16 GB or higher to store the macOS installer file. A thumb driveĪ thumb drive, aka USB flash drive, is what you would need for this to work.

Make sure you’ve got all of them as it will make the entire process much faster. Prerequisitesīefore we get started, here are some prerequisites that you need to take into consideration. You can do it anytime you want – As long as you keep the USB drive bootable with the macOS installer in it, you can reformat and reinstall the macOS again anytime you want. You can do it faster – All it takes to reinstall macOS on a computer is to simply plug in the USB drive and get the mac to boot via external source (your thumb drive). You can do it offline – Installing macOS via USB will allow you to do it offline meaning that you wouldn’t need to wait for the re-downloading of the entire macOS installer, which could take a while depending on your internet speed.

#Format usb stick for mac install

Well, if you do want to install macOS on your computer, I would suggest you to do it via USB. As a mac user, there may come a time when you’d want to reinstall macOS on your computer- say something goes wrong with your machine or you just want to have a fresh start.