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Mojave Clean Install still possible?

G

getrealbro

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 25, 2015
604
262
Yesterday I tired to download Mojave 10.4.1 via the App Store and only got a 22MB “mini-installer”. So I deleted it. And applied the High Sierra Security Update 2018-002 to make sure I was really up to date.

This AM I tried downloading Mojave 10.4.1 via the App Store again. This time after a quick download the same installer window popped up as yesterday. BUT after quitting the installer, there was no 22MB mini-installer in the applications folder :(

1 - Is a clean install of Mojave still possible?

2 - How/where can I download the full 6ish GB Mojave Installer?

FWIW in the last 3 decades I have NEVER updated a Mac OS without first trying out the new OS via a clean install on a spare disk, SD card, etc. to confirm stability and app compatibility. I'm not going to start now.

GetRealBro
 
I have just tried on Mojave 10.14.1 to download the full installer. And I have no problem.
The way I do it:
  1. Open the Mac App Store
  2. Search for Mojave in the search field
  3. Click "Show" on the Mojave "app"
  4. Click the "Get" button on the store page
  5. System Preferences launch and start the 6GB download
The file is located in the applications folder after.
 
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Lunder89 said:
I have just tried on Mojave 10.14.1 to download the full installer. And I have no problem.
The way I do it:
  1. Open the Mac App Store
  2. Search for Mojave in the search field
  3. Click "Show" on the Mojave "app"
  4. Click the "Get" button on the store page
  5. System Preferences launch and start the 6GB download
The file is located in the applications folder after.
Click to expand...
Thanks.

I tried this yesterday and it didn’t work — the search for Mojave failed. But just now I tried it again and our iMac (running El Capitan 10.11.6) downloaded the full installer :)

Meanwhile I did a clean install of Mojave on my Mini by downloading the 22MB “mini-installer” then selecting an empty SD card. The 22MB mini-installer downloaded the rest of Mojave and did a clean install on the SD card. :)

GetRealBro
 
Last edited:
I used the latest DosDude patcher app to download the full installer. It has that as an option.

One of my system would not boot after the upgrade, stuck on the loading bar. I also have a small High Sierra Container just for those issues. My process ended up as follows:
1. Download full installer with DosDude app
2. Boot into High Sierra
3. Create a new Mojave APFS container
4. Install a fresh version into that
5. Migrate apps, users, settings, and files from the old Mojave container
- I have had trouble with migration in the past, so I first migrated the users and then the rest in a separate step.
6. Delete that container after all checks out

Worked like a charm. But you need to have enough disk space.
 
I'm in macOS Sierra 10.12.6 and downloading it through the Mac App Store only gets me the 22,8MB installer file. Is there a way to get the full installer?
 
If you are having trouble downloading the full installer, try the download on another Mac. Just remember to quit the installer and copy the 6+GB “Install macOS Mojave” file from the Applications folder.

FWIW our late 2014 Mac mini still refuses to download the full installer and our late 2013 iMac happily downloads it.

GetRealBro
 
Last edited:
I was able to download the entire installer, which the App Store said was around 6GB. HOWEVER, instead of saving the full installer on my Mac Mini, it automatically deleted itself. It happened twice so maybe either i'm doing something wrong or Apple is discouraging downloading the full installer when you already have the same OS on your Mac. Kind of amusing that i'm notified I have a system update for 10.14.1 and my system is sitting on 10.4, so I get that. But what I don't get is that I was able to download the full installer twice but it was deleted from my Mac and I wasn't able to create a USB drive.

The only workaround I see is to have maybe Sierra running on a second partition and download the current full installer from the App Store. And another thing is that High Sierra is almost impossible to download now.

So it appears Apple just wants us to do incremental updates to macOS once you're on Mojave. I'll wait to update Mojave as i've already burned up 12GB of data and the 10.14.1 update is 3.3GB
 
Heat_Fan89 said:
I was able to download the entire installer, which the App Store said was around 6GB. HOWEVER, instead of saving the full installer on my Mac Mini, it automatically deleted itself. It happened twice so maybe either i'm doing something wrong or Apple is discouraging downloading the full installer when you already have the same OS on your Mac. .....
Click to expand...
I just replicated your issue. While running 10.14.1, I downloaded the full (6+GB) installer via the App Store/Software Update system preference. I monitored the download with Peak Hour 4. 6+GB of data was downloaded. I'm running a clean install on a 128GB MiroSD card. So an increase of 6+GB in any visible directory or sub-directory should be pretty obvious. But I can’t find the installer now.

Does anyone know where the Software Update system preference stores it’s downloads prior to installation?

GetRealBro
 
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