Swift Tricks

My own, mostly internal blog of Swift tips and tricks

Install macOS versions for development

Install beta version

Create a new image from your recovery partition. With Parallels this can be done using one of the options in the Create new VM assistant.

Once installed, you may have to resize the image. To do this stop the VM, update the settings for the HDD in Parallels, then restart and use Disk Utility to resize the image.

Next, intall the profle from Apple Dev Portal.

Finally, you may have to set startup flags so that the device simulates your hardware exactly:

devices.mac_hw_model="-macbook pro hw model here-"

devices.smbios.board_id="Mac-53FDB3D8DB8CA971"


You can get the board id and hw model by running these commands in Terminal:

ioreg -l | grep board-id

sysctl hw.model


If needed you can also specify startup modes:

devices.mac.boot_args="-r"

Download macOS installer

Apple has support documentation here on how to download old macOS versions and create installation media. Keep in mind that for Parallels VM you will not need to create installation media - it will offer to install a VM when the installer is available on your computer.

Install as a Parallels VM

Although you obviously won't be able to run the installer from a newer macOS, you can create a virtual machine easily as Parallels will offer to install the OS for you. Just choose "Install Windows or another OS from a DVD or image file" and then select the installation image. Parallels will then prompt you to create a bootable disk image file (*.hdd format).

Install on other VMs or hardware

You can follow Apple's directions to create an external USB or DMG bootable installer. Basically you have to run a single commend with createinstallmedia; for example with El Capitan:

sudo /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app

Alternatively if you have Parallels and already created the bootable disk as above, you can convert this into a DMG file like so:

  • Right click the bootable disk image file (*.hdd) file that Parallels created for you (see above)
  • Choose "Show package contents..."
  • Copy the "*.hdd.hds" file to a different location
  • Rename it to *.dmg