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Are you looking for simple and easy ways to create bootable USB flash drives and have recently discovered that Rufus doesn’t work on Mac? If yes, you have heard it all right.
Rufus is a competitive, open-source, free software that is trusted by a large number of users all across the globe for formatting USB flash drives and creating bootable flash drives in general. Though this is a big blessing for Windows users, Mac people are out of luck here.
But this is nothing to worry over as you can still use the Rufus software on your Mac computer by getting the Windows OS as an additional operating system on your device.
However, if you don’t want to go through the hassle of adjusting to a new operating system, we have some great Rufus alternatives for Mac to help you out.
We have composed a detailed guide for you containing some of the best Rufus alternatives in the market that are loved by the majority of Mac users around. We will also enlist some pros and cons of these alternatives to make your choice easier.
What is Rufus?
Before taking you toward the alternatives, let us first give you a breakdown of the Rufus software. To create bootable flash drives and format them, you need to seek help from a utility app. Nothing in the market can match Rufus for providing this utility service.
But the only problem with Rufus is that it is only available on the Windows operating system. The users having Linux, Mac, or any other operating system on their device have to use an alternative to Rufus.
Why Need Rufus?
Some of the things that need you to use Rufus or any other software like this are as follows:
- Creating a USB bootable drive
- To operate a system that lacks an OS
- Flash BIOS or other Firmware from DOS
- Operate a low-level utility
6 Best Rufus Alternatives for Mac
If you are wondering what the best Rufus alternatives for Mac are in the market, we have you covered. After doing thorough research and having hands-on experience with several different software utilities in the market, we have picked out the 6 best options for you.
1. Etcher
Etcher is a free, open-source utility and is trusted by thousands of users across the globe. It works in making the process of creating bootable USB flash drives from ISO files a lot easier. The best part about this Rufus alternative is that it is available for many operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac.
This tool will simplify the whole process if you are a beginner and this is your first time trying to create a bootable USB drive. With this tool, all you have to do is first download and install it on your PC.
Once the installation process completes, open it and choose the ISO file you wish to use for creating the bootable flash drive. Click to select the USB drive and hit the “Flash” button. Etcher will initiate the process of creating the bootable USB drive.
One plus point about Etcher is that it can work with both USB drives and SD cards. You also get the image validation feature on this tool, due to which it won’t write the image on a corrupted flash drive or SD card.
With this tool, you don’t have to worry about the macOS version you own, as it is compatible with the latest versions of macOS Monetary and BigSur.
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Another popular tool used to create bootable USB flash drives is DiskMaker X. It has been around for a while and can be a good option for you if you are looking for the best Rufus alternatives for Mac.
One of the things that we found pretty good about this tool is its high speed and user-friendly interface. While doing our research, we found that most of the tools for creating bootable USB drives are complex. This tool will make creating a bootable USB drive even more straightforward.
You can easily download and install the DishMaker X program on various operating systems, including Mac. Once the tool is successfully installed on your Mac computer, it will immediately detect the USB drive attached to it and the installation file.
Using this Rufus alternative, you can easily convert any USB flash drive, external Firewall, SD card, and Thunderbolt drive to a bootable drive. Even if it’s your first time trying to create a bootable flash drive or you need to solve an internal issue with your Mac, this tool will significantly help.
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If you are looking for a Rufus alternative that creates a bootable flash drive for you without formatting the USB drive, UNetbootin is the option you need to check out. It is one of the quickest and finest Rufus alternatives out there.
Out of many impressive things about this tool, the best one is that it is compatible with a wide range of distributions, including some unusual ones like Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Gentoo, Fedora, and more.
In addition to helping you create a bootable USB flash drive, it also allows you to load many system utilities. These include BackTrack and Ophcrack. Downloading and installing this tool on Windows, Linux, and macOS is straightforward.
The process of creating a bootable flash drive on UNetbootin is quite simple. All you have to do is install it on your Mac computer and once you get your hands on this utility, select the ISO file you want to use and the USB drive. Hit “OK” and wait until this tool creates the bootable USB drive.
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Another efficient Rufus alternative for Mac in the market is UUByte ISO Editor. As evident by the name, this tool works well in creating bootable ISO images from the installation or any other disk image file on the macOS.
This tool also creates an ISO archive from external folders and files. Being a versatile and user-friendly software tool, it is known for supporting almost all the renowned Mac ISO images for creating ISO images from scratch. Extracting and adding files to an ISO image is also possible with the UUByte ISO Editor.
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If you are looking for a Rufus alternative that can help you install and reinstall data on multiple Mac computers without an extensive process, Install Disk Creator is the best option for you.
It is one of the most lightweight disk image creators in the market that is compatible with macOS and allows you to perform the transformation efficiently.
To use this tool on your Mac computer, you first have to download and install it on your device. Once done, connect a USB flash drive to your Mac computer and choose the current Operating system running on the computer. Hit the “Return” option and enter the administrator user password. Your tool will initiate the process of creating a Mac bootable USB flash drive.
One thing about the Install Disk Creator tool you ought to be careful about is that it doesn’t come with an indicator showing the remaining percentage of the process or the time left for creating a bootable USB.
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The Deepin Boot Maker is an innovative tool that serves as an excellent Rufus alternative. Deepin Team developed this tool, which is known for creating numerous valuable apps in the past. As for this tool, it is undoubtedly one of the fastest, most secure, and most reliable tools for creating bootable USB drives.
Though this software comes with multiple excellent features, the one feature we liked the most is the storage space it takes. Compared to other Rufus alternatives in the market that perform their job efficiently but consume too much RAM during the process, it takes up relatively less of your total RAM space.
Installing the Deepin Book Maker tool is a simple process where you first download the tool and the ISO image file on the Mac computer. Once done, import the image file on the tool after navigating to it.
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How We Chose the Rufus Alternatives?
Considering that Rufus has been around for a long time and has managed to earn users’ trust, finding reliable Rufus alternatives wasn’t a piece of cake. We had to do a lot of research to be sure that the options we are suggesting are at least comparable to the Rufus tool.
Fortunately, after thorough research and trying out multiple tools for creating bootable USB drives, we shortlisted the 6 best Rufus alternatives for your Mac computer.
Here are some of the factors that helped us decide on these alternatives.
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Interface
As creating a bootable USB drive is a simple process and doesn’t require you to go through a lot of hassle, we wanted to keep it straightforward too. Sadly, some tools in the market add to the booting time due to their complex interface.
We wanted the alternatives to be equally beneficial for beginners and tech enthusiasts alike. This is why all the options we have enlisted above for you feature a simple and user-friendly interface.
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Price
Rufus is a free and open-source platform, so we wanted to provide you with free alternatives. Though it took us a lot of extensive research, and we had to skip on some excellent options just because they were paid, we picked out some of the best free Rufus alternatives for you.
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Speed
No one wants to spend long hours creating a bootable USB drive. Considering that Rufus is known for performing this task pretty quickly, we have included only those tools in our list that are equally fast as Rufus.
Conclusion – Best Rufus Alternatives for Mac!
Finally, you now have the 6 best Rufus alternatives for Mac before you. Though all of them are pretty good and will save you a lot of time and hassle, it’s still crucial for you to decide on one of them.
This is why we took the extra step and provided you with a list of these tools’ positive and negative aspects. Hopefully, it will make the process of deciding on one option a lot easier for you.
You can use the links we have provided with each tool to download and install them on your Mac computer, so you don’t have to go somewhere else.
Thanks for staying tuned till the end!
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