How To Create Iso File On Mac

DMG files are very common on the MacOS X platform, used for Disk Images. With Disk Images we mean a full "copy" image of for example a CD, DVD or Harddisk. DMG's are typically used to distribute applications.

Some times however you'd prefer a ISO or a CDR image instead, for example for users on different platforms, or for offering other ways to burn an image to CD or DVD (if applicable).

In this article I'll show you how you can convert a DMG file to either CDR or ISO under MacOS X, Windows or Linux.

Convert DMG to ISO options

When trying to convert a DMG to a ISO or CDR file for MacOS X, we have two options available.
The first one is by using just Disk Utility, a preferred method if you don't like working with Terminal.
The second method is by using the command line by using Terminal.

To keep the article complete, I've added a method for Windows and Linux as well.

MacOS X – ApplePi-Baker
MacOS X – Using Disk Utility
MacOS X – Command line (Terminal)
Windows (DOS box)
Linux (Shell)

After converting a DMG to ISO, the ISO file can be burned on different platforms using popular burning applications like for example Nero under Windows.

Note: ISO images, just like DMG images, can be mounted as a drive as well under MacOS X – no special software needed, just double click the ISO file.

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MacOS X – Convert DMG to ISO using ApplePi-Baker

My own little tool, ApplePi-Baker, originally intended for Raspberry Pi disk images, can assist in this as well.
Obviously you will need to download and install ApplePi-Baker first, and after that follow these steps:

Mount the DMG file by double clicking it. The DMG should now appear as a "disk" in Finder.
Start ApplePi-Baker and located the mounted disk. This can be done in two ways:Option 1: Click the "Select a Disk" in the "Select Disk(s)" section.
A list will appear, and you should see your "Mounted Image" – select it.

ApplePi-Baker – Select Mounted DMG

Option 2: Open the Advanced View and find the "Mounted Disk Image" disk.
When found double click the "/dev/diskx" line to select the disk.

ApplePi-Baker – Advanced View – Select Mounted DMG
Now select "Backup" and in the file dialog set the "File Format" to "IMG". In a matter of seconds you will have a IMG of your DMG file.
Note: the IMG can be substantially larger, since some DMG files use compression, and IMG files do not.

MacOS X – Convert DMG to ISO using Disk Utility

When using Disk Utility you will have to keep in mind that Apple uses the extension CDR for ISO images. In the end CDR and ISO files are the same, they just have a different extension. Renaming a CDR file to ISO afterwards will fix that.

The steps are straight forward:

Double click the DMG so it mounts.
Open Disk Utility (Utilities Disk Utility).
Right click the DMG Mount and select the "Convert" option.

Disk Utility – Right click mounted GMD image and choose Convert
In the dialog that now opens, set the "Image Format" to "DVD/CD master" and click "Save".

Disk Utility – Select format and click Save
After the converted file has been saved, locate it and rename it to .ISO. For example if you saved it as "example.cdr" then now rename it to "example.iso".

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MacOS X – Convert DMG to ISO from the command line

Some of us prefer the command line, I for one often forget the details of the particular thing I'd like to do so I find myself using the first option more often.

Start Terminal (Utilities Terminal).

Type:

                                hdiutil convert                  /path/to/example.dmg                  -format                  UDTO                  -o                  /path/to/example.iso

Here /path/to/example.dmg and /path/to/example.iso are the paths to the files obviously.

After pressing ENTER, it will take a few seconds and after completion you will find your iso file with an additional .CDR extension. Simply rename it to .ISO.

                                                  mv                  example.iso.cdr example.iso

Windows – Convert DMG to ISO or IMG

For Windows we need a little free tool called DMG2IMG, a successor of DMG2ISO.

As usual the file can be downloaded from Tweaking4All, but I strongly recommend going to the developers website to grab the latest version.

After downloading and unzipping the file, the usage in a DOS box is simple.

For DMG to ISO:

                        dmg2img example.dmg example.iso

For DMG to IMG:

                        dmg2img example.dmg example.img

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Linux – Convert DMG to ISO or IMG

A tool like DMG2IMG is also available under Linux, in Ubuntu for example, the easiest way to get it is:

                                                                                            1
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                                                                              sudo                      apt-get update                      
                      sudo                      apt-get install                      dmg2img

The command line use again is simple:

For DMG to ISO:

                        dmg2img example.dmg example.iso

For DMG to IMG:

                        dmg2img example.dmg example.img