The Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks download script is now hosted on Mavericks Forever. To download Mavericks, open a Terminal on any Mac and run:
curl mavericksforever.com/get.sh | sh
Or, navigate directly to mavericksforever.com/get.sh to read what the script does.
This is some excellent work , I've been trying to create an installer from the Internet Recovery of a 2011 MacMini , which defaults to downloading Mavericks even in 2025. Ive had limited success. I managed to create a OS X Base System from the Internet Recovery using the Terminal utility and dd , and additionally found that if I start to install the OS to a USB drive and stop it rebooting after it has authenticated and downloaded the chunks then I have the missing Packages folder.
However the downloaded InstallESD.dmg files is missing the hidden BaseSystem.dmg file.
I was working on a method of creating a OS X Base System.dmg large enough to replace the Alias 'Package' folder with the real folder obtained from the halted installation , this worked but I never managed to get it to boot.
Also I managed to download the Install OS X Mavericks.app from the App Store using an old version of OSX , but the InstallESD.dmg says it is corrupted , so that stopped me in my tracks.
Then I came across this which looks to work a treat but I have just tried the Create Bootable Media Installer shell command and it stops after verifying the resulting image saying :-
Checksum Failed.
Expected 343510FE
but got 2C66917B
Could Not Restore : Invalid Argument
I have no idea why this is? , any insight would be really helpful.
But there is hope , as the InstallESD.dmg file that this script creates has a valid BaseSystem.dmg file so I can use that to restore to a USB and then replace the missing package directory. Well that's the theory.
Any help or advice would be great , I have a sinking feeling that the checksum failed for one of two reasons.
The only way so far I have been able to create a working installer in 2025 entirely from apple downloads , is to use an old BaseSystem.dmg from an installer I made in 2014 and use that along with the packages downloaded by Internet Recovery to replace the missing .pkg files. All a bit of a faff.
Hope you can give me some insight, thanks for the amazing work you have done with this.
I can supply a link to download my BaseSystem.dmg from 2014 if anyone wants or needs it.
Kindest Regards,
Alex.
Checksum Failed.
Well, that would indicate the DMG is corrupt... I'm not sure why that would have happened but my guess is hdiutil messed up while building the final image. (The actual files served by Apple could not have changed, the download script itself does a checksum on those.)
Can you try restarting your computer (just for good measure) and then restarting the download from scratch? Use mavericksforever.com/get.sh | sh to download, the download script in this gist is outdated (although it should have worked fine).
Also, just to make sure, you're ending up with a file called InstallMacOSXMavericks.dmg, right? If you have InstallESD.dmg that isn't a bootable image!
Hi There,
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly , I'll try all the things you mentioned and get back to you ASAP.
It's weird that the Installer App that I manage to download direct from apple won't work as it's InstallESD.dmg inside Shared Support declared it is corrupted? odd
Anyway will get back to you as soon as ive tried this things.
Also yes file I am ending up with is in fact the InstallMacOSXMavericks.dmg
Thanks again for your hard work and advice, will get back to you as soon as I know more.
Hi There. :)
So great news , after a few failed attempts (Could Not Unmount Volume etc.) , I found that having the finder window open showing the volume stopped it being unmounted for some weird reason. Also at the end I got an ASR error , but I think that was just trying to rename the USB.
Either way , it's worked , a working booting USB from Apple Servers of Mavericks in 2025.
I have learnt a lot from my experimenting and failures but also from your awesome script work , thank you very much , it's much appreciated.
I think I could have come to the same end by using the BaseSystem.dmg that your script downloaded , and the package files , the semi installed OS had , along with my dd copied and enlarged Image , but why reinvent the wheel right :)
Again thank you.
One last question , any guess why the Installer I can download from an old OS App Store will not just work using the createmedia tool? and any idea why when I try to look inside the app contents the shared system InstallESD.dmg is reporting itself as corrupt?
Not that it matters now just curious.
Thanks again to all involved in this great work. :)
Last login: Mon Dec 1 01:16:03 on ttys000
/Users/alex/create-bootable-installer.command ; exit;
alex@Louises-MacBook-Air ~ % /Users/alex/create-bootable-installer.command ; exit;
Checksumming partition of size 0 blocks...done
Block checksum: ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
successfully scanned image "/Users/alex/InstallMacOSXMavericks.dmg"
Please enter the volume name of your USB flash drive: Untitled
WARNING: All data on Untitled will be erased. Continue? (yes/no) yes
Password:
Started partitioning on disk2
Unmounting disk
Creating the partition map
Waiting for partitions to activate
Formatting disk2s2 as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) with name Untitled
Initialized /dev/rdisk2s2 as a 57 GB case-insensitive HFS Plus volume with a 8192k journal
Mounting disk
Finished partitioning on disk2
/dev/disk2 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *61.9 GB disk2
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk2s1
2: Apple_HFS Untitled 61.5 GB disk2s2
Validating target...done
Validating source...done
Retrieving scan information...done
Validating sizes...done
Restoring ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Verifying ....10....20....30....40....50....60....70....80....90....100
Restored target device is /dev/disk2s2.
Remounting target volume...done
asr: Couldn't personalize volume /Volumes/OS X Base System - State not recoverable
Saving session...
...copying shared history...
...saving history...truncating history files...
...completed.
[Process completed]
So great news , after a few failed attempts (Could Not Unmount Volume etc.) , I found that having the finder window open showing the volume stopped it being unmounted for some weird reason. Also at the end I got an ASR error , but I think that was just trying to rename the USB.
Odd, I'm not immediately sure what to do about that. (I know you got it working but it's a shame it wasn't a smoother experience.)
One last question , any guess why the Installer I can download from an old OS App Store will not just work using the createmedia tool? and any idea why when I try to look inside the app contents the shared system InstallESD.dmg is reporting itself as corrupt?
If I recall correctly, the InstallESD.dmg inside the App Store's Mavericks installer was never restorable, even when Mavericks was current. But of course createinstallmedia worked at one point.
From what I understand, Apple updated the App Store Mavericks installer some years back to re-sign a certificate or something, but ended up breaking it. Or something like that, haven't looked into this closely—but It's not only broken for you!
Many thanks , that explains a lot.
Congrats again with the great work in automating the whole process. 👍👍
Hi there again.
So I’ve been working with ChatGPT to try and create a script to produce a working “Install OS X Mavericks.app” have had some progress but keep running into the wall where even if the InstallESD.dmg is the one downloaded from your script , once the .app is created and I try to use createinstallmedia tool , it just says This is not a valid OS X installer.
Any Thoughts?
This is the script we came up with.
#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
BROKEN_APP_DIR="/Users/labtech4/Desktop/Broken App"
GOOD_ESD_DIR="/Users/labtech4/Desktop/Good ESD"
OUT_PARENT="/Users/labtech4/Desktop/Rebuilt Install OS X Mavericks App"
GOOD_ESD="$(find "$GOOD_ESD_DIR" -maxdepth 1 -type f -iname "InstallESD*.dmg" -print -quit || true)"
if [ -z "$GOOD_ESD" ]; then
echo "[ERROR] Cannot find InstallESD.dmg in $GOOD_ESD_DIR"
exit 1
fi
if [ -d "$BROKEN_APP_DIR" ] && [[ "$BROKEN_APP_DIR" == .app ]]; then
BROKEN_APP="$BROKEN_APP_DIR"
else
BROKEN_APP="$(find "$BROKEN_APP_DIR" -maxdepth 1 -type d -iname "Install.app" -print -quit || true)"
if [ -z "$BROKEN_APP" ]; then
echo "[ERROR] Cannot find Install OS X Mavericks.app in $BROKEN_APP_DIR"
exit 1
fi
fi
mkdir -p "$OUT_PARENT"
STAGED_APP="$OUT_PARENT/Install OS X Mavericks.app"
WORKTMP="$(mktemp -d /tmp/mavericks_rebuild.XXXXXX)"
trap 'rm -rf "$WORKTMP"' EXIT
echo "Good ESD: $GOOD_ESD"
echo "Broken app: $BROKEN_APP"
echo "Output app: $STAGED_APP"
echo "Working temp: $WORKTMP"
hdiutil attach "$GOOD_ESD" -nobrowse -readonly >/dev/null
ESD_MOUNT="/Volumes/OS X Install ESD"
BASE_LOCAL="$WORKTMP/BaseSystem.dmg"
cp -p "$ESD_MOUNT/BaseSystem.dmg" "$BASE_LOCAL"
cp -p "$ESD_MOUNT/BaseSystem.chunklist" "$WORKTMP/"
SPARSE="$WORKTMP/BaseSystem.sparseimage"
hdiutil convert -ov "$BASE_LOCAL" -format UDSP -o "$SPARSE" >/dev/null
hdiutil resize -size 6500m "$SPARSE" >/dev/null
hdiutil attach "$SPARSE" -nobrowse -readwrite >/dev/null
MOUNT_BASE="/Volumes/OS X Base System"
rm -rf "$MOUNT_BASE/System/Installation/Packages" 2>/dev/null || true
mkdir -p "$MOUNT_BASE/System/Installation"
cp -R "$ESD_MOUNT/Packages" "$MOUNT_BASE/System/Installation/"
cp -p "$ESD_MOUNT/BaseSystem.dmg" "$MOUNT_BASE/System/Installation/"
cp -p "$ESD_MOUNT/BaseSystem.chunklist" "$MOUNT_BASE/System/Installation/"
hdiutil detach "$MOUNT_BASE" >/dev/null
hdiutil detach "$ESD_MOUNT" >/dev/null
OUT_DMG="$WORKTMP/InstallMacOSXMavericks.dmg"
hdiutil convert -ov "$SPARSE" -format UDZO -o "$OUT_DMG" >/dev/null
rm -rf "$STAGED_APP"
mkdir -p "$STAGED_APP/Contents/SharedSupport"
mkdir -p "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Resources"
mkdir -p "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Frameworks"
mkdir -p "$STAGED_APP/Contents/MacOS"
cp -R "$BROKEN_APP/Contents/Resources/"* "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Resources/" 2>/dev/null || true
cp -R "$BROKEN_APP/Contents/Frameworks/"* "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Frameworks/" 2>/dev/null || true
cp -p "$OUT_DMG" "$STAGED_APP/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg"
if [ -f "$ESD_MOUNT/Packages/InstallableMachines.plist" ]; then
cp -p "$ESD_MOUNT/Packages/InstallableMachines.plist" "$STAGED_APP/Contents/SharedSupport/"
fi
if [ -f "$BROKEN_APP/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia" ]; then
cp -p "$BROKEN_APP/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia" "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Resources/"
chmod +x "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia"
else
cat > "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia" <<'CIM'
#!/bin/sh
echo "Use ASR restore method; createinstallmedia not included."
exit 1
CIM
chmod +x "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia"
fi
cat > "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Info.plist" <<'EOF'
CFBundleIdentifier com.apple.InstallAssistant.Mavericks CFBundleName Install OS X Mavericks CFBundleVersion 1 CFBundleExecutable InstallAssistant EOFxattr -cr "$STAGED_APP" >/dev/null 2>&1 || true
chmod -R 755 "$STAGED_APP"
chown -R "$(whoami)":staff "$STAGED_APP"
echo
echo "=== Rebuild complete! ==="
echo "Rebuilt app location: $STAGED_APP"
echo
echo "Do you want to create a bootable USB now? (This will erase the selected disk) [y/N]: "
read -r CREATE_USB
if [[ "$CREATE_USB" =~ ^[Yy]$ ]]; then
echo "Available volumes:"
ls /Volumes
echo
echo "Enter the name of the USB drive exactly as it appears in /Volumes (will be erased): "
read -r USB_VOL
DISK_ID=$(diskutil info "/Volumes/$USB_VOL" | awk '/Part of Whole/ {print $NF}')
if [ -z "$DISK_ID" ]; then
echo "[ERROR] Could not determine disk identifier for $USB_VOL"
exit 1
fi
echo
echo "All data on $USB_VOL ($DISK_ID) will be erased! Confirm by typing YES: "
read -r CONFIRM
if [ "$CONFIRM" != "YES" ]; then
echo "Aborting USB creation."
exit 1
fi
CURRENT_DATE=$(date "+%m%d%H%M%Y")
echo "Temporarily setting system date to Jan 1, 2015 to avoid certificate errors..."
sudo date 0101010115
echo "Creating bootable USB..."
sudo "$STAGED_APP/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia"
--volume "/Volumes/$USB_VOL"
--applicationpath "$STAGED_APP"
--nointeraction
echo "Restoring original system date..."
sudo date "$CURRENT_DATE"
echo "Bootable USB created on $USB_VOL"
else
echo "USB creation skipped. You can use createinstallmedia manually."
fi
echo "Done."
Basically trying to fix what Apple broke , when you download the installer app from the old App Store , it can’t validate the InstallESD.dmg but the one your script downloads is valid . Trying to merge the two together to create a working .app is proving tricky. 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
@Sixxdog-UK Hi, see https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/can-we-download-mavericks-directly-from-apples-servers.2444350/page-7?post=33648307#post-33648307
Tl:dr is that, as far as I can tell, what you're trying to do is impossible.
@waterdragon78 Absolutely!!! You don't need to give credit, but if you'd like to anyway, you can use the information at the top of the script.
My one request is that you do what you can to prevent the
board serial numberandromin this script from getting banned by Apple. For example, please don't make multiple parallel requests to Apple's servers in an attempt to achieve faster download speeds. And, please don't use these identifiers for any purpose other than downloading Mavericks.Thanks for helping make Mavericks accessible to more people!