Mar 26, 2016 (if you don't find those files, you are in the wrong Library folder.) Quickest way to your user Library is from the Go menu in the Finder, while holding your Option key. Drag those files to your trash. Log out and log back in to your user, or simply restart your Mac. Jun 18, 2008 Anyways, does anyone know if it is possible to download a DMG file on a Windows machine, move it to a Mac via memory stick, then install the DMG on the Mac? I know that data bits are just bits, but I'm concerned primarily about any Mac/Windows endian issues and Windows doing something 'weird' with the contents of a DMG file.
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Categories: macOS | View Comments
I ran into an interesting macOS error while working with a customer a couple of weeks ago. I didn't find a lot of good search results addressing the issue, so I decided to write up a post about it myself.
The error was as the screenshot above shows; trying to open a dmg (disk image), macOS showed the error 'no mountable file systems'. If you see the 'no mountable file systems error' while opening a dmg, here's what you should try:
In most cases, the downloaded dmg file is actually corrupt or had an error downloading. If possible, try downloading the dmg again, turning off any download assistant plug-ins you may have. You can try downloading the file in a different browser as well. Or if you don't need to be logged in to the site to download the file and you want to be fancy, you can try
curl -O url
in Terminal to download the file. (There's an example of that in my screenshot below.)Reboot your Mac if you haven't already tried that. Apparently there is an issue sometimes after opening too many dmg files, that is fixed with a reboot.
Try mounting the DMG on the command line in Terminal. We will at least get some sort of useful error message to go on if it still fails:
Open Terminal: In Spotlight, the search magnifying glass at the upper right corner of your screen, search for Terminal, and press enter to open the Terminal app.
Type
hdiutil attach -verbose
into the terminal. Add a space at the end, but don't press enter yet.Drag the dmg file from your Finder window onto the Terminal window and let go. This will fill in the location of the dmg file into your Terminal window.
- Press enter.
macOS Sierra (10.12) and earlier is not able to mount the new Apple File System (APFS). So if you're on macOS Sierra (10.12) or earlier and you ran hdiutil and see references to
Apple_APFS
or error112
, the issue is likely legitimate incompatibility, and this disk image won't open on this Mac without an update to the operating system.Here's an example of the end of
hdiutil attach -verbose
output that shows an APFS error due to an older version of macOS:Think about if you have any kind of security policies on this machine to prevent writing to external drives (thumb drives, optical drives, etc). I haven't seen this one in action, but I read about this being a possibility while researching the issue.
Another suggestion added by a reader (thank you, Markus!) is that filesystem errors on your main Mac drive could be the cause of the disk image mounting errors. Here are instructions from Apple for scanning and repairing errors using Disk Utility. Note that in order to scan and repair errors on your main Macintosh HD drive, you'll need to reboot your Mac into recovery mode. You'll want to choose Disk Utility in the utilities listed in the recovery mode menu.
A new discovery from a reader (thank you, Colby!) is that APFS DMGs won't mount if you're booted in macOS booted in Safe Mode. (Who knew!?!) If you're not sure if you're in safe mode, select the Apple menu > About This Mac > System Report button, then select the 'Software' heading from the left column. To exit safe mode, restart your Mac, without holding Shift during startup. Or, if you previously set your Mac to always boot into safe mode using
nvram
, turn off safe mode and have your Mac boot normally on the terminal:Open Terminal: In Spotlight, the search magnifying glass at the upper right corner of your screen, search for Terminal, and press enter to open the Terminal app.
Type/paste
sudo nvram boot-args='
and press enter.Restart your Mac.
Mac Os Dmg File Download
DMG Files on Mac OS
Run Dmg File On Mac
In Mac OS file extension DMG is often referred as Apple Disk Image and is used to refer to files which store disk images. DMG files could be mounted as a volume in Finder. Currently DMG files on Mac OS are used to distribute software packages.
When software package in DMG file is opened it instructs Mac OS Finder to change its window in a way it is easy for user to copy application to the right folder. Finder window shows source application folder and the destination folder. All that user has to do is to drag and drop application folder to the destination folder. This will install an app.
Below are steps you need to take to install an application from DMG file:
- Double click the DMG file. This will make its contents available in Finder.
- Drag the application from the DMG window into Applications. This will initiate installation process.
- Wait until the copy process is finished
- Eject the DMG file (click Eject button on the Finder Sidebar)
- Delete the DMG file
Similar file extensions
- IMG file - Disk Image Format for Windows
- ISO file - Image File Format