Just quit out of this as you don't want to actually run the normal installer.Ħ.) The important thing is that you've now got the Yosemite installer available within your Applications directory, as shown below. It's about a 5GB download, so this'll take a bit.ĥ.) Once it's done downloading, you'll see the installer screen.

You're just getting the installer application.Ĥ.) Grab some coffee. Click continue and don't worry about overwriting your current system, you won't actually be completing the installation.

Otherwise, the installer will delete itself before you get the drive created.)ģ.) Assuming your system is already running Yosemite, you'll get a warning about whether or not you want to continue. If not, then your option will be to install Yosemite, but after the download is done, you'll want to skip over to creating the Installer Thumbdrive prior to continuing with the update. (Note that this assumes you've already installed Yosemite on this system and the installer was already automatically removed. Getting the Yosemite Installer 1.) Open the Mac App Store and find the Yosemite Installer.Ģ.) Download it. Not only does it make it easier to upgrade or install the OS if you've got several Macs to manage (since otherwise, you'd need to have each individual one download the update via the App Store) but you'll also get key tools for diagnosing and fixing a problematic system.įor example, Disk Utility can't do most of its magic on the boot volume, but by booting from the USB drive, it'll be able to do its thing.įortunately, the process is pretty easy and thumbdrives are cheap, so there's no reason not to! Which is why having the latest Mac OS X installer and a bootable system on a USB thumbdrive can be an absolutely invaluable tool. In the past, you'd generally use the install discs, but now those don't exist and most Macs don't even have DVD drives anymore. Why have a bootable USB Thumbdrive? While Apple's move to having Mac OS X updates be entirely done through the App Store is very streamlined and convenient in most situations, it presents a challenge if you need to troubleshoot your Mac or have several Macs that you need to manage.

Os x yosemite usb