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This tutorial exercise walks you through the best way to create a bootable Big Sur macOS flash drive so you can upgrade a Mac that doesn’t have a DVD drive.
How to create a bootable macOS Big Sur installation drive
Get an external drive and maybe an adapter
The macOS Big Sur installation software is over 12GB, so you need an external USB drive that can store that amount of data. The drive can be a USB stick, hard drive, or SSD. If you have a Mac laptop from 2015 or later that has USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports, you may need the $19 Apple USB to USB-C Adapter. This will allow you to connect a storage device that uses a USB type A connector.
If you don’t have an external drive and you have a USB-C enabled Mac laptop, you can purchase the SanDisk Ultra USB Type-C Flash Drive, which has a USB-C connector. You can get the model number SDCZ450-016G-G46. You must erase the drive and format it in Mac OS Extended (Journaled). You can do this in the Mac’s Disk Utility app, which is located in the Applications/Utilities folder.
Get the macOS Big Sur installation software
Big Sur is available through the Apple App Store. Click the Get button at the top right and the Software Update system preference will open. Click the Download button. The download may take a while. But once the download is complete and the installer starts, do not click the Continue button. Exit the installer by pressing Command-Q. Then go to your Applications folder and you should find an “Install macOS Big Sur” app. You must have the app there to make the drive bootable.
Use Terminal to create a bootable macOS Big Sur installation drive
- You’re going to use Terminal to turn your external drive into a bootable macOS Big Sur installer. Don’t worry if you’ve never used Terminal before, it’s easy. Here are the instructions.
- Connect the external drive to your Mac. In these instructions, I use Untitled as the name of the external drive. If your unit has another name, you should change Untitled to the name of your unit.
- Start Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)
- Go back to Terminal and paste the copied code into the prompt. Remember to change Untitled to the name of your disc. Press Return.
- The terminal may request your password. Enter it and press Return.
- Terminal will warn you that your external drive needs to be erased. To continue, type Y at the prompt and press Return.
- An alert may appear requesting permission for Terminal to access a removable drive. Click OK.
- You will see that Terminal erases your disk and then copies the installation file to your disk. This will take a few minutes.
- After copying, the Terminal is ready. You should see Terminal display a message saying your drive is ready to use.
Update installation drive
This section may not be necessary for you to complete. It won’t show up if it’s not needed.
- Connect your external drive to your Mac.
- Intel Mac: Restart/turn on the Mac and hold down the option key on the keyboard during the boot process.
- Apple silicon Mac: Restart/turn on the Mac and hold down the Mac’s power button during the startup process.
- After a few moments, your Mac should bring up the Startup Manager, which will show you the available startup drives. Click on the external drive and press Return.
- An alert appears that says, “A software update is required to use this startup disk.” Click the Update button. You’ll need an Internet connection (click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar and select a connection), and the update process takes several minutes. After the update runs, your Mac will restart. You still have one more thing to do before you can boot the external drive.
Change security settings
- Your Mac may be set to not allow you to use an external startup disk. You will have to change this. That is how. You need to boot into recovery mode. Reboot and on Intel Mac hold down Command-R during the boot process. A Mac M1, press and hold the power button.
- Your Mac should start up with a “macOS Utilities” window. Click the Utilities menu and select Startup Security Utility. An “Authentication Required” window appears. You need to authenticate as an administrator. This means that you need the username and password of an account on the Mac that is designated as an administrator. When you have that information, click Enter macOS Password, and then enter your username and password.
- Several options will appear. For our purposes here, look under the Allowed Boot Media section and check the button for “Allow booting from external or removable media.” Then close the window. We are almost there! Now it’s time to finally boot from the external drive.
How to boot from the installation drive
With the external drive plugged in.
- Intel Mac: Restart/turn on the Mac and hold down the option key on the keyboard during the boot process.
- Apple silicon Mac: Restart/turn on the Mac and hold down the Mac’s power button during the startup process.
- The Startup Manager should appear. Select your external drive.
- The Mac will start up in recovery mode. You should see a window with four options. If you want to install Big Sur and leave your data intact, select Install macOS Big Sur. If you want to start over and erase your data, you must first access Disk Utility to reformat the internal drive, and then install macOS Big Sur. Make your selection and click Continue.
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