Need Help Creating macOS Ventura USB Boot Disk (2024)

Thatch Zen wrote:

I’m in the process of attempting to create a macOS Ventura USB Boot Disk and I need some help. For brevity I created one last year (2023) with no problems but this year (2024) when I followed the exact same steps in “terminal” I received the following error: “/Applications/Install macOS Ventra.app does not appear to be a valid installer application” and after troubleshooting and conducting research I believe that the problem is that I have a partial installer folder “Install macOS Ventura” in “Applications” because that file is 39.6 MB instead of 12GB.  So the solution to my problem should be to remove the current partial installer folder“Install macOS Ventura” in “Applications” and download the current version which is “macOS Ventura, Version 13.6.7” through the “terminal” with “software update” and “fetch full installer” commands.  Because I’ve never done this before I’m hoping that someone could answer the following for clarification: 

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/c51685fd-220f-4584-830c-66cd2944c26a

 What is the correct way to manage the current partial installer folder“Install macOS Ventura” (39.6 MB) in “Applications” on my iMac for this procedure? To be specific should I move it to the “Trash” before downloading  “macOS Ventura, Version 13.6.7” through the “terminal”

yes, and empty the trash.

That is way too small, even for an incremental update.

Does anything at > Create a bootable installer for macOS - Apple Support help...?

Run the stub installer which will continue downloading the rest of the installer app. Just pay attention to the download, so when the download finishes, you can quit the installer so it does not proceed any further. Then you can use the command line to create the bootable USB installer.

You can also use the command line to download the installer as well. Here are the commands:

To see which versions of macOS installer you can download, run this command:

softwareupdate  --list-full-installers

Use the following command to download one of those installers (best to use the most recent one for whatever OS you choose). Replace "<xx.y.[z]>" with the numeric version of one of the installers listed from the output of the previous command.

softwareupdate  -d  --fetch-full-installer  --full-installer-version  <xx.y[.z]>

For example for my 2020 M1 laptop I have the following possible installers:

% softwareupdate --list-full-installers
Finding available software
Software Update found the following full installers:
* Title: macOS Sonoma, Version: 14.5, Size: 13673854761K
* Title: macOS Sonoma, Version: 14.4.1, Size: 13617677748K
* Title: macOS Sonoma, Version: 14.4, Size: 13616899444K
* Title: macOS Ventura, Version: 13.6.7, Size: 12210304673K
* Title: macOS Ventura, Version: 13.6.6, Size: 12204014697K
* Title: macOS Ventura, Version: 13.6.5, Size: 12202941263K
* Title: macOS Monterey, Version: 12.7.5, Size: 12407486945K
* Title: macOS Monterey, Version: 12.7.4, Size: 12408638012K
* Title: macOS Big Sur, Version: 11.7.10, Size: 12416490165K

If I want to install the latest version of Ventura, the command would be to replace "<xx.y[.z]>" with "13.6.7":

softwareupdate  -d  --fetch-full-installer  --full-installer-version  13.6.7

I don't think you need to have "sudo " placed before the "softwareupdate" command in order to download the installer.

Sometimes I have encountered issues where the download either stalls or is aborted, so just run the command again.

To elaborate on where that stub installer comes from, it seems you get that when you aren’t already running the version you are downloading. It does more of an online installation the first time. After it is installed, you can download the full installer from the App Store. Or, you can download a full installer as shown by HWTech.