FAQs

Frequently asked questions

Answers to question frequently asked about TINU:

• TINU Opens with a terminal window prompting me to inert my password, is it normal? Should i worry? This is absolutely normal behaviour and it's needed on systems with SIP (System Integrity Protection) Enabled and running the latest OS versions in order to let the installer creation process to work as it should. This is a workaround for some restrictions applied by apple to apple scripts, so long story short this is all needed because Apple keeps introducing system restrictions.

• What do I need to use to use TINU? To use TINU you need a machine or a virtual machine that does run Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.0 or a more recent version of Mac OS X/macOS, a 8 gb or bigger USB thumb drive or a partition of at least 7gb (or large enough for the installer you want to use), a copy of a Mac OS X/macOS installer app downloaded from the App Store, which should be inside the /Applications folder or in the root of a storage device connected to the system.

• Which are the versions of the Mac OS X/macOS installer app that can be used to create a bootable macOS installer? TINU can create macOS install medias from Mavericks up to the latest macOS versions, including also beta and newly released installers, to work with TINU the installer app must contain it's original "createinstallmedia" executable into it's Resources folder, and be a complete app with all the installer files inside of it.

• Why can't I use TINU to create installers of Mac OS X Mountain Lion and older? You can't use such old versions of the Mac OS X installer with TINU because those versions don't support the "createinstallmedia" method for the creation of bootable installers, TINU has been designed to use only this method, and also this app aims to be future proof rather than backwards compatible with such old versions.

• Will a bootable macOS installer created with TINU work on a real mac? Yes it will, because TINU uses the "createinstallmedia" method that is actually the official method that is recommended by apple for the creation of bootable installers, and it's always developed and tested on original macs.

• What about Apple Silicon macs? TINU is untested on those macs, but as far as we are aware it should work on them too, just like it does on the intel ones, but it's still not guaranteed to work. If someone owning one of those macs offers to do some tests for us, it would be very helpful.

• Does TINU use the vanilla method? Are bootable installers created with TINU vanilla? YES, TINU is designed to be vanilla from the ground up. It is essentially a user interface which implements the official apple's command line method for the creation of bootable macOS installers, it also automates some of the steps normally needed for the standard vanilla method, and makes a series of operations to make sure that the installer creation will succeed and that any error during the process will be detected.

• What changes between TINU and other methods/apps? TINU is basically a simpler way to use the command line vanilla method to create bootable macOS installers, which is a method which other apps may not use, so installers created with TINU are exactly the same installers you would create using the official command line method, the only changes are some small customisations like the drive icon and the readme file, which can be disabled into the options section.

• TINU seems to just copy the installer app on the selected drive, so what's the point of this app? It isn't just a copy of the installer app, in fact the "createinstallmedia" executable used by TINU creates, on the selected drive, some invisible files and directories which are needed to make the installer bootable, so this allows you to boot from the installer.

• The option to install the Clover/Open Core EFI folder does not work or gives me an error message First of all make sure that you have selected the EFI folder and not any other subfolder or parent folder and that the content of the EFI folder is intact, it must contain all the essential clover/Open Core files and folders. Extra recommendation in case of problems: Make also sure that any EFI partition in your system is unmounted before starting the creation of your bootable macOS installer and that the name of the EFI partition of your target drive is EFI.

• Will TINU install clover/open core or any other bootloader on my installer? No, it can only install pre-made Clover/Open Core EFI folders using the options section.

• TINU has not formatted the EFI partition of USB drive, why? By default TINU will format only the target partition selected by the user (if the partition is on a drive that which uses the GUID partition scheme), but if the target partition is on a drive which does not use GUID, the whole drive will be formatted using GUID, in the options, in the general section you find also an option to force TINU to format the entire drive instead of just the selected partition.

• Do I need to use disk utility or do any other thing before using TINU? The answer is no, you don't have to, just make sure to have all you need into the computer as the requirements screen of TINU indicates, of course you can do something first if you want, for example if you want to use multiple partitions in your target drive you can add them using disk utility or others disk management software, but to prevent TINU from formatting everything on your drive you have to make sure that it uses the GUID partition table.

• Why can't I use TINU on Mavericks and older versions of mac? You can't use TINU on old Mac OS X versions because it needs some features which have been introduced in Mac OS X Yosemite, like proper support for Swift apps.

• Can I use TINU on 32 bit systems or PPC systems like older Macs? No you can't, essentially because TINU is made in Swift, which can be used to make only 64 bit intel/Apple Silicon apps on the Apple platforms. Also TINU requires Yosemite to work, which is an os which requires a 64 bit intel machine.

• TINU seems to take a lot of time to complete the bootable macOS installer creation process, is it normal? can I stop it? It's basically not TINU's fault, TINU does simply launch the "createinstallmedia" executable after some checks and then waits for it to finish his work, the process may take several minutes or hours in some rare cases, depending on things like the amount of data that has to be copied, speed of drives and storage devices involved and the performance of the machine used. We suggest to just leave the TINU window to his work and everything should go right. TINU is also designed to let the user to know if there are any errors, so in case of problems it will notify you. If there are any bugs or things you think are wrong with the app, just open an issue on the github repo.

• Why does TINU asks me for the password multiple times? This happens because TINU performs a series of tasks which requires administrator privilege and the way those are implemented doesn't allow TINU to keep those privileges for itself or for other tasks which requires them (this is also done for security reasons and for user awareness). The tasks performed by TINU which requires special access are: Mounting, unmounting and formatting partitions and drives (including EFI partitions), closing processes (opened apps which can interfere with TINU or other installer creations which are running on the computer or cancelling the current installer creation process) and creating installers.

• I am having problems opening the app Try to open with right click->open on the app's icon and make sure that you are using the official latest release of the app, that you are using a supported version of Mac OS X/macOS, an admin account on the current machine, also check security and anti virus options of the system, which some times may block this kind of app.

• The installer creation process fails on macOS Catalina, why? The installer creation process makes uses of some apple scripts (like what you use to program the automator stuff) to get the necessary administrator privileges to execute the installer creation process correctly, those apple scripts are now somewhat broken on macOS Catalina and so those will not work unless the SIP (system integrity protection) is disabled, so disabling the SIP will allow you to successfully complete the installer creation process, a new solution is in the works to try to fix this.

• I am having some bugs or problems, what can I do? if you can't find the solution to your problem open a bug request on this GitHub repo and specify as most things you can of your system, the installer app, the version of TINU, mac os version, etc ..., more details will help us to solve the issue.

• I have an idea or a suggestion for this app Send and email to the app's developer at [email protected], or reply here on GitHub

• Can I re-host the download or the source code of this program? Yes you can, but we recommend to our users to trust only original releases here on this repo, if you think your changes are relevant create a fork with your changes and then request the developers to apply your changes.

• Can I use source code from TINU in my own project? Yes you can, but make sure to respect terms and conditions of the GNU GPL v3 license used for this project.

• The usage of this app is causing me software or hardware problems The TINU developer and affiliates/contributors do not takes any responsibility for that, you are responsible for what you do with this app and with your machine and also for any damage that can happen while using this software or the source code, for any problem open an issue in the bugs section.