As of June 2025, DownloadFullInstaller by scriptingosx stopped its development. For over three years, my repository, DownloadFullInstaller, was a fork of the original. However, after the original was archived, I created a new repo as standalone (not forked) version. I'll keep this project active and up to date as long as it is useful to other users.
"Download Full Installer" is a macOS application written in SwiftUI that downloads installer pkgs for the "Install macOS Big Sur" application and newer. Runs on macOS 13 Ventura through macOS 26 Tahoe.
- Update up to macOS 26 Tahoe
- Xcode project requires macOS 13 Ventura or newer
- Preferences for choosing catalog are no longer a separate dialog but are now at the top of the main window
- A single macOS version or all versions can be displayed at once
- Add sleep prevention logic to avoid sleeping while the application is running
- Add language selection system
- Update translations
- Add download resume functionality that automatically handles network interruptions
- Add progress bar overlaying to the application's dock tile icon during PKG downloads
- Add support for up to 3 simultaneous downloads
- Add customizable download folder selection
- Clean up incomplete downloads on app quit
- Add legacy macOS installer support (10.7-10.12); read this
- Add Sparkle updater system to check for new releases
After downloading an InstallAssistant.pkg file, you can create the macOS installer application (e.g., "Install macOS Sequoia.app") directly from within Download Full Installer:
- Download the PKG using the download button (↓)
- Click the "Create Installer App" button next to the download button
- The PKG file will open with the standard macOS installer
- Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation
- The macOS installer app will be created in the
/Applicationsfolder
Download Full Installer -> Settings menu (⌘ ,) opens a window where you can select a different folder to download installers. Default is ~/Downloads. Visual indicators (green marks) of downloaded installers are updated to match those in the selected folder.
Language selector can be opened from the menubar (Languages > Select Language) or by keyboard shortcut (⌘ + L).
Incomplete downloads may accumulate in the sandboxed temp directory
~/Library/Containers/perez987.DownloadFullInstaller/Data/tmp
consuming disk space indefinitely. The cleanup safely removes regular files (not directories) from NSTemporaryDirectory(), which resolves to the sandboxed temp path. Individual file deletion failures don't halt the overall cleanup process.
If you see App is damaged and can't be opened when you open Download Full Installer for the first time, read this document.
There is a "Download Full Installer 11" app and project that run on macOS 11 Big Sur or newer:
- Latest app version is 2.5.3 (183).
- Platform:
- "Download Full Installer 11.app" runs on macOS 11+.
- Xcode project requires macOS 13 or newer.
- "Download Full Installer 11" has all the functionalities of "Download Full Installer" except these two:
- No language selector.
- No legacy macOS download.
(by scriptingosx)
This is a Swift UI implementation of the scriptingosx's fetch-installer-pkg script. It will list the full macOS Big Sur (and later) installer pkgs available for download in Apple's software update catalogs. You can then choose to download one of them.
You may want to download the installer pkg instead of the installer application directly, because you want to re-deploy the installer application with a management system, such as Jamf.
Since the Big Sur macOS installer application contains a single file larger than 8GB, normal packaging tools will fail. I have described the problem and some solutions in detail in this blog post.
- Copy the download URL for a given installer pkg from the context menu.
- Change the seed program in the Preferences dropdown menu.
- Create the installer app directly from the downloaded PKG without leaving the application.
No. Apple only provides installer PKGs for Big Sur and later. Earlier versions of the Big Sur installer are removed regularly.
No.
As far as I can tell, this downloads the same pkg as softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer and installinstallmacOS.py.
The difference is that the other tools then immediately perform the installation so that you get the installer application in the /Applications folder. This tool just downloads the pkg, so you can use it in your management system, archive the installer pkg, or manually run the installation.
- Both fetch-installer-pkg and this application are based on Greg Neagle's installinstallmacos.py script.
- Thanks to matxpa: fixes and improvements in version 2.0.