Once you cancel, you will have the full 6gb installer files since the mini installer downloads all required files. To get the full “legit” version from Apple, start the mini installer that you get from the App Store and follow the prompts until you get to the point that it starts counting down to reboot your machine.
How to build your own full macOS Mojave installer. This approach is a fantastic tip that was left in our comments here by Randy (thanks Randy!), it has been repeated below with minor editing for clarification: This method works to create a full 6GB “Install macOS Mojave.app” installer application which can be used for making USB boot disks and independent installations. Alternate Method: How to Manually Build a Full MacOS Mojave InstallerĪnother approach allows you to manually build your own full macOS Mojave installer, without using the Dosdude tool discussed above. This is only speculation however, and if you have an exact answer (or theory) as to why some Mac users download the full Mojave installer and some download the mini-installer, share with us in the comments below.
It’s not entirely clear what causes the small installer app to download on some Macs but not others, it may be related to the exact version of Mac OS / Mac OS X system software installed on the Mac which is attempting the download, or perhaps on available hard disk space.
I went through this exact process on a MacBook Air running Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 and it worked exactly as described to download the full size macOS Mojave 10.14.x installer application.įor what it’s worth, a similar mini-installer issue occurred previously with some users getting a tiny incomplete macOS High Sierra installer too and we covered a similar workaround here to download the full installer file for macOS 10.13.x.
If installing macOS Mojave on an unsupported Mac interests you, you can read more here or on the aforementioned DosDude page.
For our purposes in this particular walkthrough well simply use the patch to download the full installer app.
* In case you were wondering what this patch is intended for, the Dosdude Mojave patch allows you to install macOS Mojave on unsupported Mac hardware in an unofficial capacity, but that is not what we’re aiming to do here. The latter complete installer file is the only one that contains the createinstallmedia tool to be able to build a macOS Mojave boot disk as discussed here. When complete, look in the directory you chose as the Save location for the “Install MacOS Mojave.app” file, you can confirm it is full size by selecting it and choosing Get Info if desired.įrom the Get Info window on the installer file, here’s the mini 20 MB “stub” installer for macOS Mojave that is incomplete:Īlso from a Get Info window on the full size installer application downloaded via DosDude tool, here’s the complete XXX GB “Install macOS Mojave.app” installer app:
Pull down the “Tools” menu and choose “Download macOS Mojave”.Launch the Mojave patch app (you may need to bypass the Gatekeeper warning by right-clicking on the app and choosing “Open”).
While the regular update or installation for macOS Mojave works just fine from the 22 MB stub installer (the other install files are downloaded later), you can’t use the 22mb incomplete installer to make a bootable macOS Mojave installer flash drive, nor use the mini-installer offline, and also since it’s not the full installer app it makes little sense to copy it to other Macs if you want to install Mojave onto them too.