macOStools

Create a Ventoy USB drive from a Mac

Ventoy has no macOS installer. Prepare the USB drive on a Mac, hand it to a Linux VM that runs Ventoy's official Linux installer, then manage ISOs from Finder.

Shellbash
Updated
Script
bash
# Ventoy ships installers for Windows and Linux only — there is no macOS build.
# This prepares the drive on the Mac so a Linux VM can install Ventoy onto it.

# 1. Find your USB drive identifier — VERIFY before proceeding
diskutil list external

# 2. Unmount (do NOT eject) so the VM can take the device — replace disk4
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk4

# 3. In your hypervisor (UTM, Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion), attach the
#    USB device to a Linux VM, then run the Linux playbook inside the VM:
#    https://peira.dev/playbooks/ventoy-usb-linux/

What this does

Gets Ventoy onto a USB drive when your only computer is a Mac. Ventoy’s releases contain a Windows package, a Linux package, and a LiveCD ISO, and nothing for macOS. Its Ventoy2Disk.sh installer depends on Linux tools, so it does not run in the macOS Terminal.

The workaround is to let a Linux virtual machine do the one-time install. The Mac identifies and unmounts the drive, the hypervisor passes the USB device through to the VM, and the Linux playbook installs Ventoy from inside the VM.

Why this approach

After the install, the Mac is all you need. Ventoy’s large data partition is exFAT, which macOS reads and writes natively. Adding an ISO is a Finder drag-and-drop, with no reflashing between images.

If you have any Windows or Linux computer available, even for five minutes, skip the VM entirely. Install Ventoy there with the Windows or Linux playbook, then bring the drive back to the Mac.

Prerequisites

  • A USB drive (8 GB minimum; 32 GB+ recommended). Ventoy erases it.
  • A Linux VM in a hypervisor with USB passthrough: UTM (QEMU backend), Parallels Desktop, or VMware Fusion.

Critical: identify the correct disk

Run diskutil list external and find the disk whose size matches your USB drive:

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *32.0 GB   disk4

Unmount it with diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk4. Use unmount, not eject: eject removes the device, and the VM can no longer claim it.

Inside the VM the same drive gets a Linux name such as /dev/sdb. Confirm it with lsblk before running the installer, because the Mac’s disk4 name means nothing there.

Adding ISOs

When the install finishes, detach the USB device from the VM. The Ventoy data partition mounts in Finder. Drag ISOs onto it; subfolders are fine.

Notes

All playbooks