gibMacOS

gibMacOS is a Python script that downloads macOS installation files directly from Apple's servers. It works on both Python 2 and Python 3. The main use case is getting a copy of macOS without going through the Mac App Store, which is useful for people building custom setups, recovering a system, or testing older versions of the OS.

For macOS versions up through Catalina (released in 2019), the script can also build a bootable USB drive for internet recovery from a Windows PC. This requires two additional tools: dd and 7-Zip. The README notes clearly that this Windows USB creation method does not work for macOS Big Sur or later, because Apple changed how it distributes the operating system starting with Big Sur.

For Big Sur and newer versions, Apple now distributes macOS as a single package file called InstallAssistant.pkg. The README notes that running this file on a Mac places the installer in the Applications folder directly, so an additional build step is no longer needed.

The README is short and does not describe installation steps, command-line options, or detailed usage instructions. It acknowledges three other open-source tools that the project draws from: FetchMacOS, macadmin-scripts, and brigadier.