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Omkar Konaraddi

How to burn an .iso file to a USB stick on Mac without any additional software

Published on 2025-11-20.

ChatGPT recommended installing software when I needed a USB stick with Ubuntu on it, so here's how to do it without installing any software. If you're not familiar with the Terminal then I'd suggest either becoming familiar with it or not following the below because mistakes could result in personal data being accidentally wiped.

Plug in your USB stick and find it below.

$ diskutil list

Suppose your USB stick is /dev/disk2. Unmount it.

$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk2

Burn your .iso image to the stick.

$ sudo dd if=/path/to/image.iso of=/dev/disk2 bs=4m status=progress

Eject the USB stick.

$ diskutil eject /dev/disk2