In fact, you have a couple of ways to do this: either using Disk Utility to format the drive before installing macOS or cloning your drive using a third-party tool.
macOS users can also install the OS onto a USB drive and work with the same installation that’s on your internal (and faster) drive. You can use the built-in Disk Utility to format your drives to. Linux users know that booting from a USB drive is a useful way to get into the OS. The Mac operating system requires that you use a disk formatted using a compatible file system. In short, we don’t recommend it, and it’s likely not supported. We also don’t know whether you’ll experience issues if you look to install an older OS you don’t own.
Though, if your Mac is based on Apple Silicon, you may find incompatibilities. In theory, there’s no reason why you couldn’t boot an older version of macOS, and Apple does offer ways to install older versions on a USB. Can I boot older versions of macOS from a USB drive? Our testing gave us no issues when using a USB 2.0 to USB-C connector, so you’re able to press your older USB drives into service. Am I able to use a USB connection other than USB-C? We recommend 16GB to give yourself enough “wiggle room” when it comes to the installation process. Choose this option if you don’t need an encrypted or case-sensitive format.
Mac OS Extended (Journaled): Uses the Mac format (Journaled HFS Plus) to protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system.
As such, you’ll need a large enough USB drive to store Big Sur. Choose one of the following Mac OS Extended file system formats for compatibility with Mac computers using macOS 10.12 or earlier. In our experience, you will not be able to do this. Can I split an installation across multiple USB drives? Disk operations on the boot drive can be performed safely from a USB stick as well. You can now run the operating system as normal and use this USB drive to boot up your Mac. For Intel Macs, restart and hold the Option key to enter into the boot selection dialog.įor both types of machines, use your keyboard’s arrow keys to select the USB drive from the list of bootable devices, click to confirm, and your USB drive will begin to boot.