Downloading old macOS Big Sur installers? There's an app for that!

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Macos Big Sur Preview California Wallpaper Hero
Macos Big Sur Preview California Wallpaper Hero (Image credit: Rene Ritchie)

What you need to know

  • A new Mac app can download previous macOS Big Sur installers for later use.
  • This could be great for people who need to download once and deploy onto multiple machines.

A new app makes it easier than ever to download macOS Big Sur installers for use at a later date. It could be beneficial for anyone archiving the installers for use further down the line, for example.

Another potential use is by people who need to download the installer once and then deploy it onto multiple Macs as quickly and easily as possible. Such a tool already exists in script form, but this new Siwft UI implementation just looks better!

MotivationYou 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

Macos Big Sur Downloader Screenshot

Macos Big Sur Downloader Screenshot (Image credit: Scripting OS X)

The tool is free and can be downloaded from Github now. Note that it won't give you access to older versions of macOS, so you can only get the last few macOS Big Sur releases. There are no macOS Monterey installers here for obvious reasons, too.

Apple will release macOS Monterey to the public later this fall with the update now in the hands of developers. The installers will likely be available via this tool once that happens.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.