
The Install Disk Creator is just a wrapper for the terminal command to create macOS install disks, so if you’re comfortable formatting your USB drive yourself and opening a Terminal window, it’s almost as easy to do it this way. This should only take a few minutes on a USB 3.0 flash drive in a modern Mac, though using USB 2.0 will slow things down. A progress bar across the bottom of the app will tell you how far you have to go, and a pop-up notification will let you know when the process is done. Once you're ready to go, click "Create Installer" and wait.

You can navigate to a different installer if you want, and you can also pick from all the storage devices and volumes currently connected to your Mac through the drop-down menu at the top of the window. Install Disk Creator will automatically detect macOS installers on your drive and suggest one for you, displaying its icon along with its path.

Apple rolls support for newer hardware into new macOS point releases as they come out, so this will help keep your install drive as universal and versatile as possible.

If you want to use this USB installer with newer Macs as they are released, you'll want to periodically re-download new Catalina installers and make new install drives. There are other apps out there that do this, but this one is quick and simple. If you want a GUI, take a look at Ben Slaney's Install Disk Creator from MacDaddy.The installer will delete itself when you install the operating system, but it can be re-downloaded if necessary. The macOS 10.15 Catalina installer from the Mac App Store (in High Sierra or older macOS versions) or the Software Update preference pane in Mojave.A USB 3.0 drive will make things significantly faster, but an older USB 2.0 drive will work in a pinch 8GB drives worked for Mojave and older versions of macOS, but the Catalina installer is just a little too large to fit.

