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.
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.
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for the feedback , it was just a fun experiment and I learnt a lot from doing it.
Nice to know it’s been tried before and not just me being hopeless. 😆
Just as a side note , did you know that the certificate issues don’t just effect mavericks , if you download an installer from an old version of the AppStore , the InstallESD.dmg still can’t be opened. Not such a problem as we have links to download everything else , just a curious side note.
Thanks again for your brilliant work.
sixx
Please update this script. Unfortunately, I tried to restore the Mavericks installer using the restore command script to a specific drive partition. It erased the entire drive, I lost a lot of important files.
Oh no, I'm so sorry you lost data!
The USB creation script does need to repartition the entire disk in order to ensure a GUID Partition Table. I've updated the warning message to make this more explicit:
WARNING: Everything on the disk containing $target_volname will be erased. Continue? (yes/no)
The entire reason this part of the script exists is because I kept getting emails from people who ran into trouble doing the restore manually via Disk Utility. Most of these users have no idea what a partition is, or that a disk can have more than one. I do still recommend using Disk Utility for more complex disk layouts.
It's really tricky to come up with phrasing that will accurately inform a more technical user without confusing a less-technical one. Even with the current phrasing, I'm worried some people will think that their entire computer will be erased or something.
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.)
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!