- Supported version: 0.6.2
While you don't need a fresh install of macOS to use OpenCore, some users prefer having a fresh slate with their boot manager upgrades.
To start we'll want to grab ourselves a copy of macOS. You can skip this and head to formatting the USB if you're just making a bootable OpenCore stick and not an installer. For everyone else, you can either download macOS from the App Store or with gibMacOS.
# Downloading macOS: Modern OS
- This method allows you to download macOS 10.13 and newer, for 10.12 and older see Downloading macOS: Legacy OS
- Install Git on Mac. Most versions of MacOS will already have Git installed, and you can activate it through the terminal with git version. However, if you don't have Git installed for whatever reason, you can install the latest version of Git using one of several popular methods as listed below.
- May 20, 2013 Once installed, you can open up Terminal.app and run git commands to your heart's content. Command line aficionados, rejoice! Update: We've since removed the ability to install Git from GitHub for Mac, because OS X Mavericks and later includes a version of Git already.
From a macOS machine that meets the requirements of the OS version you want to install, go directly to the App Store and download the desired OS release and continue to Setting up the installer.
Why install GitHub for Mac? The command line interface can be intimidating, hard to use, and you have to memorize all the commands. Additionally, GitHub has some specific features that are not part of Git. In this tutorial, we will install GitHub for Mac, a nice a free GUI for Git / GitHub. Installing Git on a Mac. Open a terminal window. Step 1 – Install Homebrew. Homebrew simplifies the installation of software on the Mac OS X operating system. – Homebrew – Wikipedia. Copy & paste the following into the terminal window and hit Return.
For machines that need a specific OS release or can't download from the App Store, you can use the gibMacOS utility.
Now let's grab gibMacOS, then unzip it into a local directory.
Next run the gibMacOS.command
:
As you can see, we get a nice list of macOS installers. If you need beta versions of macOS, you can select C. Change Catalog
. For this example we'll choose 1:
This is going to take a while as we're downloading the entire 8GB+ macOS installer, so it's highly recommended to read the rest of the guide while you wait.
Once finished, we'll next want to run the BuildmacOSInstallApp.command
:
You will be prompted for the macOS installer files which were downloaded to macOS Downloads
folder in the gibMacOS directory.
From the Finder, drill down to the folder containing the downloaded files and either drag it to the command line or 'Cmd+C' and paste it to the terminal.
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Once the task is completed, exit the utility. You will find the Install file in the directory.
Move the newly created image to the Applications folder – this will simplify the next section.
# Downloading macOS: Legacy OS
- This method allows you to download much older versions of OS X, currently supporting all Intel versions of OS X(10.4 to current)
# Legacy macOS: Offline method
This method allows us to download full installers from Apple, however is limited to 10.10, Yosemite, so older OSes will need to be grabbed via the 'Online Method' mentioned below.
To start, head to one of the following links:
On step 4, you'll see either InstallOS.dmg
for Sierra or InstallMacOSX.dmg
for El Capitan and older. Download your desired version and a .pkg file should be provided.
Depending on what OS you're on, you can run this script and head to Setting up the installer however if you receive this error:
This means we'll need to manually extract the installer.
# Extracting the Installer
To start, grab the InstallMacOSX/InstallOS.dmg and mount it:
Next, let's open up terminal window and make a folder on our desktop to break things. Run one at a time:
Now we get to the fun part, extracting the installer(Note this may take a few minutes):
- For El Capitan(10.11) and older:
- For Sierra(10.12):
Next, run the following(one at a time):
- Yosemite:
- El Capitan:
- Sierra:
Once this is done, you can head to Setting up the installer!
Grabbing legacy versions of macOS: Online method(10.7-10.15 Supported)# Legacy macOS: Online method
This method allows us to download legacy versions of macOS including 10.7 to current, however these are only recovery installers so require an internet connection inside the installer itself
To start, you'll want to use macrecovery.py instead. This tool is actually already bundled in OpenCorePkg:
Instructions for running are quite simple, choose from one of the below commands depending on which OS you want to download:
From here, run one of those commands in terminal and once finished you'll get an output similar to this: Speakers for mac computers.
Once this is done, format your USB as FAT32 with GUID Partition Scheme:
And finally, create folder on the root of this drive called com.apple.recovery.boot
and place the newly downloaded BaseSystem/RecoveryImage files in:
From here, you can skip to Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment
Legacy macOS: Disk Images(10.4-10.6 Supported)# Legacy macOS: Disk Images
This method instead relies on hosted images either from Apple or Acidanthera, and restoring onto your drive.
# Acidanthera Images
The below installers were pulled from genuine Mac restore disks with their SMBIOS lock removed, contents of OS X itself have not been modified in any way.
# Apple Images
Note that these images require you to have an Apple Developer account to access.
# Restoring the drive
Now comes the fun part, you'll first want to open the dmg you just downloaded and have it mounted. Now open Disk Utility and format your drive as macOS Extended(HFS+) with a GUID partition map:
Next we have 2 options to follow:
- ASR Restore(Apple Software Restore)
- Terminal based, works with SIP enabled
- Disk Utility Restore
- May require SIP disabled in newer OSes
# ASR
Here you'll simply want to open terminal and run the following:
- Note: This may not align with your setup, please change accordingly:
- Change
/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD
to what your mounted Disk Image is called - Change
/Volumes/MyVolume
to what your USB is called
- Change
This will take some time but once you're finished, you can skip to Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment
# Disk Utility
Due to some pesky issues with Disk Utility, many restores can fail if SIP is enabled. If you have issues we recommend either using the ASR Method or disable SIP.
To start, open Disk Utility and you should see both your USB drive and the Disk Image in the sidebar. From here, select restore
This will take some time but once you're finished, you can skip to Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment
TroubleshootingIf you get an error such as this one during restore:
This likely means SIP needs to be disabled, however we recommend using ASR Method instead.
# Setting up the installer
Now we'll be formatting the USB to prep for both the macOS installer and OpenCore. We'll want to use macOS Extended (HFS+) with a GUID partition map. This will create two partitions: the main MyVolume
and a second called EFI
which is used as a boot partition where your firmware will check for boot files.
- Note: By default, Disk Utility only shows partitions – press Cmd/Win+2 to show all devices (alternatively you can press the View button)
- Note 2: Users following 'Legacy macOS: Online method' section can skip to Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment
Next run the createinstallmedia
command provided by Apple. Note that the command is made for USB's formatted with the name MyVolume
:
This will take some time so you may want to grab a coffee or continue reading the guide (to be fair you really shouldn't be following this guide step by step without reading the whole thing first).
You can also replace the createinstallmedia
path with that of where your installer's located (same idea with the drive name).
Pulled from Apple's own site: How to create a bootable installer for macOS
# Legacy Setup
For systems not supporting UEFI boot, see below:
Setting up Legacy BootTo start, you need the following:
- BootInstall_IA32.tool or BootInstall_X64.tool
- This can be found in OpenCorePkg under
/Utilties/LegacyBoot/
- This can be found in OpenCorePkg under
- Install USB(Created above)
Within your OpenCore build folder, navigate to Utilities/LegacyBoot
. Here you'll find a file called BootInstall_ARCH.tool
. What this does is install DuetPkg to your desired drive.
The below installers were pulled from genuine Mac restore disks with their SMBIOS lock removed, contents of OS X itself have not been modified in any way.
# Apple Images
Note that these images require you to have an Apple Developer account to access.
# Restoring the drive
Now comes the fun part, you'll first want to open the dmg you just downloaded and have it mounted. Now open Disk Utility and format your drive as macOS Extended(HFS+) with a GUID partition map:
Next we have 2 options to follow:
- ASR Restore(Apple Software Restore)
- Terminal based, works with SIP enabled
- Disk Utility Restore
- May require SIP disabled in newer OSes
# ASR
Here you'll simply want to open terminal and run the following:
- Note: This may not align with your setup, please change accordingly:
- Change
/Volumes/Mac OS X Install DVD
to what your mounted Disk Image is called - Change
/Volumes/MyVolume
to what your USB is called
- Change
This will take some time but once you're finished, you can skip to Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment
# Disk Utility
Due to some pesky issues with Disk Utility, many restores can fail if SIP is enabled. If you have issues we recommend either using the ASR Method or disable SIP.
To start, open Disk Utility and you should see both your USB drive and the Disk Image in the sidebar. From here, select restore
This will take some time but once you're finished, you can skip to Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment
TroubleshootingIf you get an error such as this one during restore:
This likely means SIP needs to be disabled, however we recommend using ASR Method instead.
# Setting up the installer
Now we'll be formatting the USB to prep for both the macOS installer and OpenCore. We'll want to use macOS Extended (HFS+) with a GUID partition map. This will create two partitions: the main MyVolume
and a second called EFI
which is used as a boot partition where your firmware will check for boot files.
- Note: By default, Disk Utility only shows partitions – press Cmd/Win+2 to show all devices (alternatively you can press the View button)
- Note 2: Users following 'Legacy macOS: Online method' section can skip to Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment
Next run the createinstallmedia
command provided by Apple. Note that the command is made for USB's formatted with the name MyVolume
:
This will take some time so you may want to grab a coffee or continue reading the guide (to be fair you really shouldn't be following this guide step by step without reading the whole thing first).
You can also replace the createinstallmedia
path with that of where your installer's located (same idea with the drive name).
Pulled from Apple's own site: How to create a bootable installer for macOS
# Legacy Setup
For systems not supporting UEFI boot, see below:
Setting up Legacy BootTo start, you need the following:
- BootInstall_IA32.tool or BootInstall_X64.tool
- This can be found in OpenCorePkg under
/Utilties/LegacyBoot/
- This can be found in OpenCorePkg under
- Install USB(Created above)
Within your OpenCore build folder, navigate to Utilities/LegacyBoot
. Here you'll find a file called BootInstall_ARCH.tool
. What this does is install DuetPkg to your desired drive.
Installing Github For Mac High Sierra
Now run this tool in terminal with sudo(This tool will likely fail otherwise):
This will give you a list of available disks, choose yours and you will be prompted to write a new MBR. Choose yes[y]
and you'll be finished.
This will provide you with an EFI partition with either a bootia32 or bootx64 file
# Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment
Setting up OpenCore's EFI environment is simple – all you need to do is mount our EFI system partition. This is automatically made when we format with GUID but is unmounted by default, this is where our friend MountEFI comes in:
You'll notice that once we open the EFI partition, it's empty. This is where the fun begins.