Right-click (or control-click) on this file and select “Show Package Contents.” This will reveal the “guts” of the Installer’s application package.ĭrill down to Contents > SharedSupport and find the “InstallESD.dmg” file. Here you’ll find an app called “Install OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion” or something similar depending on the version of OS X you downloaded from the Mac App Store. Open Finder and navigate to your Applications folder. Quit it by pressing Command+Q we don’t need the installer application, just what’s inside it. Once it’s complete, the OS X Installer will automatically launch. OS X is a multi-gigabyte file so the download process may take a while depending on your connection speed. Find your desired version of OS X in the list and click the “Download” button to the right.

If you’ve already purchased OS X, open the Mac App Store and head over to the “Purchases” tab. Note that you can always re-download the version of OS X that came with your Mac for free.Īs of the date of this article, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is the current OS, although the recently-announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks is right around the corner. Here’s how to create your own USB or DVD Installer for OS X.įirst, you’ll have to purchase a copy of OS X from the Mac App Store if you don’t already have one. This approach brought many benefits, such as not having to keep and safeguard a physical disc, immediate access to the OS when purchased instead of having to wait in line, and server-side updates to the downloadable installer so that the most current version of OS X is always installed when updating new machines.īut what if you’ve just installed a new hard drive in your Mac and have no version of OS X with the Mac App Store? Or what if you don’t have a reliable Internet connection? In these cases, it’s always best to have a physical local copy of the OS X installer. Instead of a traditional disc, customers could now purchase and download OS X directly from the Mac App Store. With the release of OS X 10.7 Lion in 2011, Apple officially abandoned physical media for its operating system installations. For OS X Mavericks, see this updated process. UPDATE: Apple has changed the process for creating a USB installer with OS X Mavericks and the method below no longer works.

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