Download Full Installer

Note: As of June 2025, the original repository has been archived by the developer.
So, no more changes will be made and it will remain as is.
I'll try to keep my repo active and up to date as long as it is useful to other users.

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This is a Swift UI implementation of my 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.

Notes about version 2.0

As of December 2025, user matxpa has modified this app by updating it to the most recent versions of macOS, fixing issues and adding improvements, hence the change to version 2.0:

• (widely) Improved Swift code

• Updated up to macOS 15 Sequoia

• Fixed an issue that prevented displaying a beta version of macOS from a system with an older version. Beta versions are now displayed if the correct catalog is selected (Beta word is only applied to the icon of the most recent macOS version)

• 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

• 2 buttons have been added

  • Download installer package
  • Create app from installer package.

• Spanish localization and instructions to prevent sleep while downloading (perez987).

Motivation

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.

Extras

• Copy the download URL for a given installer pkg from the context menu.
• Change the seed program in the Preferences dropdown menu.

Questions

Is this different than the fetch-installer-pkg script?

Not really, other than it is a UI app and written in Swift and SwiftUI instead of a command line script written in python. I used this as a project to learn more about SwiftUI.

Can this download older versions of the macOS installer application?

No. Apple only provides installer pkgs for Big Sur and later. Earlier versions of the Big Sur installer are removed regularly.

Will you update this so it can download older versions?

No.

How is this different than softwareupdate or installinstallmacOS.py

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.

Skip sleep while downloading the installer

Download Full Installer does not prevent the system from going to sleep while an installer is being downloaded. You can prevent this with the caffeinate command:

• open Terminal
• type top | grep "Download"
• stop top with Ctrl + C
• the output shows at the beginning of each line the PID of Download Full Installer
• type caffeinate -w PID(where PID is a number)
• sleep is blocked until Download Full Installer is closed.

/Users/yo > top | grep "Download"
2233  Download Full In (more text...)
#stop with Ctrl + C
/Users/yo > caffeinate -w 2233

Credit

Both fetch-installer-pkg and this application are based on Greg Neagle's installinstallmacos.py script.