Kruszoneq/macUSB

macUSB is a macOS application that facilitates the creation of bootable USB drives for Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. It provides a comprehensive workflow that includes discovering and downloading macOS installers, analyzing source images for compatibility, and executing privileged write operations via a background helper service. The system supports advanced configuration options such as Windows autounattend setup and raw Linux image flashing, while ensuring data integrity through post-write verification.

This change adds specific SVG icon assets for Windows 10 and Windows 11, along with a licensing note for the Font Awesome icons used. It also introduces a new documentation file for Linux distribution icons, attributing the uniform icon set to a Reddit user and noting the lack of a specified license for the collection. These assets support the application's ability to visually identify and display different operating systems during detection and installation workflows.

macUSB/Resources/Icons · high confidence

Users can now configure Windows autounattend settings during installation, including hardware requirement bypass (Windows 11 only), Mac language and region usage, device encryption prevention, data collection disabling, wireless setup skipping, Microsoft account requirement skipping, and local account creation with display name validation. The system also handles conflicts when an existing autounattend file is detected, allowing users to choose between using the existing file, replacing it with MacUSB-generated settings, or stopping the installation.

macUSB/Features/Installation/Windows/Autounattend · high confidence

The Downloader now supports creating macOS DMG disk images from downloaded installers. This feature includes preflight checks to verify available disk space on the system and destination volumes, automatic naming policies that handle filename collisions, and a workflow that stages the installer, invokes the system hdiutil tool to generate the image, and cleans up temporary files. The process provides detailed diagnostics and handles partial success scenarios where the image is created but source cleanup fails.

macUSB/Features/Downloader/Logic/DiskImage · high confidence

The app now displays a branded item in the macOS Touch Bar, showing the application icon alongside the app name and a specific slogan defined in the branding configuration. This change introduces the \TouchbarSupport\ class to manage the Touch Bar layout, ensuring the branding is consistently presented to users on compatible hardware.

macUSB/Shared/UI/TouchBar · high confidence

The application now includes a new service that automatically detects the presence and installation paths of required Windows toolchain components, specifically Homebrew and wimlib, by searching standard system directories and the user's PATH environment variable.

macUSB/Shared/Services/Windows · high confidence

The macUSB tool now includes the macUSBoot bootloader (version 1.0) in its bundled resources, enabling support for Windows BIOS installation media. This update adds the bootloader binary, its SHA-256 checksum, a manifest detailing the binary's structure (including MBR payload and stage two components), and a README with source information.

macUSB/Resources/Bootloaders · high confidence

The Welcome screen now displays the app's branding, including a primary slogan ('Download. Flash. Boot.') and a secondary tagline, along with a link to the support project. Upon first launch, it automatically triggers a startup sequence that handles Full Disk Access permissions, bootstraps helper services, and checks for application updates, displaying an alert with the current and remote version numbers if an update is available.

macUSB/Features/Welcome · high confidence

The UI layer now adapts to macOS 26's Liquid Glass visual system, using native glass effects on supported versions while providing a styled fallback (subtle fills, strokes, and shadows) for earlier macOS releases. This includes updated design tokens for corner radii, scales, and spacing, as well as new surface modifiers for panels, docked bars, and buttons. Additionally, a new toast notification system has been added to display animated status updates for background helper auto-updates, informing users when the process is running or has completed.

macUSB/Shared/UI · high confidence

The helper service now enforces strict XPC code-signing verification to ensure the app communicates only with a trusted, signed helper process, displaying a localized repair prompt if verification fails. The IPC layer has been expanded to support new workflow types, including Windows USB creation with autounattend configuration (e.g., skipping hardware requirements, local account creation) and Linux raw dd operations. Additionally, the helper now supports querying its own capabilities (such as Windows MacUSBoot support) and can install Rosetta on ARM Macs, with all privileged operations tracked via an activity registry to manage app state during these background tasks.

macUSB/Shared/Services/Helper · high confidence

The analysis engine now detects and classifies Linux operating systems, identifying distributions (such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, and NixOS), versions, and architectures (x86\_64 and ARM) from both mounted volumes and ISO archives. It also introduces a raw image workflow that allows users to bypass analysis for .iso and .img files, treating them as direct copies to the USB drive.

macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic/Linux · high confidence

The installation feature now includes a dedicated Rosetta installation flow for macOS targets requiring it, allowing users to install the translation layer directly from the app if missing. Additionally, the USB creation process now blocks system sleep to prevent interruptions during media writing, and the UI provides detailed, stage-by-stage progress tracking for macOS, Windows, and Linux workflows.

macUSB/Features/Installation · high confidence

The Downloader feature now includes a complete SwiftUI-based interface for discovering, downloading, and configuring macOS installers. Users can now create disk images from downloaded installers, with options to select the destination folder and toggle beta version visibility. The interface enforces system prerequisites by alerting users if Full Disk Access or background login items are missing, and handles disk space validation with specific warnings for system versus destination volumes. The workflow includes animated transitions between the installer selection list and the active download progress view, which displays stage-level details, network warnings, and a final summary with options to open the result in Finder or proceed to USB creation.

macUSB/Features/Downloader/UI · high confidence

The macUSBHelper now supports several new privileged operations via XPC. It can assemble macOS installers from legacy .dist or .dmg sources (Yosemite/El Capitan/Sierra) and modern packages, including cleanup of session files. It handles Windows USB creation, including autounattend configuration (with options to skip hardware requirements, use Mac language/region, prevent device encryption, and create local accounts), WIM splitting, and BIOS/UEFI boot media installation. It also includes a dedicated Rosetta installer for Apple Silicon Macs. The helper enforces strict XPC client trust verification and manages its own process lifecycle, exiting when idle.

macUSBHelper · high confidence

The analysis feature has been restructured by extracting core logic from the UI view into a dedicated \AnalysisLogic\ class, improving separation of concerns. This change introduces a new SHA-256 checksum verification workflow, including a background service for calculating digests and a SwiftUI sheet for displaying progress and copying results. Additionally, the app now supports selecting and analyzing raw Linux \.img\ files via a dedicated coordinator and handoff mechanism, while also refining the handling of macOS USB targets and system detection states.

macUSB/Features/Analysis · high confidence

The Finish screen now includes a dedicated, safe USB ejection flow. Users can eject the created drive directly from the summary view, with the system monitoring disk availability and handling specific failure modes, such as blocking by Spotlight (mds\_stores), by offering a force-eject option. This logic is implemented in the new FinishUSBEjectLogic class and integrated into the FinishUSBView UI.

macUSB/Features/Finish · high confidence

The project now builds and bundles a privileged helper executable (macUSBHelper) along with its launch daemon plist files into the application bundle. This helper supports a comprehensive set of workflow modules, including dedicated logic for Linux and Windows USB creation (with Windows-specific stages, source/target resolution, and autounattend configuration), macOS installer discovery, and Rosetta installation. The build configuration also includes security policies for helper connection verification and resources such as Linux distro icons and completion sounds.

macUSB.xcodeproj · high confidence

The macUSBTests and macUSBUITests targets have been removed from the project. This eliminates the unit test suite (macUSBTests.swift) and the UI test suite (macUSBUITests.swift and macUSBUITestsLaunchTests.swift), which contained only placeholder implementations and were not actively used.

macUSBTests, macUSBUITests · high confidence

The Linux installation feature now includes a dedicated write verification stage using SHA-256 to ensure data integrity after copying the image to the USB drive. The user interface provides more granular progress feedback, distinguishing between unmounting, copying, and verifying stages with specific icons and status messages. Additionally, the workflow now handles busy target drives by prompting users to force unmount if necessary, and presents localized, specific error messages for verification failures (such as data mismatches or short reads) rather than generic errors.

macUSB/Features/Installation/Linux · high confidence

The downloader logic now includes robust integrity verification for macOS installers, using reference SHA-256 checksums from a new \DownloadChecksums.json\ manifest to validate files for legacy systems (High Sierra through El Capitan) and modern packages. It also introduces passive prerequisite checks that verify Full Disk Access permissions and helper service readiness before allowing downloads, and adds a dedicated cleanup flow to securely remove temporary session files after completion.

macUSB/Features/Downloader/Logic · high confidence

The application now prevents termination or window closure while active operations (such as USB creation, analysis, or downloading) are in progress, ensuring workflows are not interrupted. It introduces a dedicated Full Disk Access permission flow that probes system access and guides users to settings if required, alongside a new notification permission manager for completion alerts. Additionally, the USB creation process now detects and displays drive speed, supports raw Linux .img selection, and includes improved cleanup logic to unmount source images and remove temporary files upon app exit.

macUSB/Shared/Services · high confidence

macUSB now automatically detects when the system helper service needs repair after an app update or build change, triggering a background repair process with toast notifications and detailed logging. The helper repair flow has been simplified with a new SwiftUI-based progress panel that shows real-time status and technical logs, while status checks provide clearer feedback on helper health, background approval requirements, and trust verification failures.

macUSB/Shared/Services/Helper/HelperService · high confidence

The app now includes a language menu in the main menu bar, allowing users to switch between English, Polish, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (BR), and Russian. Changing the language requires an application restart, which is handled via a modal alert prompting the user to relaunch the app. Additionally, debug shortcuts have been added to the 'Options' menu to simulate successful USB creation flows for macOS Big Sur, Mac OS X Tiger, and Linux, facilitating testing of the finish summary views.

macUSB/App · high confidence

The application now includes dedicated localization keys for the staged progress and status messages of the new Windows and Linux USB creation workflows. This change adds support for displaying specific stage titles and statuses—such as source preparation, media verification, and autounattend configuration for Windows, as well as raw copy and write verification for Linux—ensuring users receive clear, localized feedback during these advanced creation processes.

macUSB/Shared/Localization · high confidence

The Downloader now uses a new discovery module to detect macOS installers. It fetches and parses Apple's software update catalogs (stable and public beta channels) to list available versions, including legacy OS X releases (10.7–10.12) sourced from Apple Support. It also scans the local /Applications folder for existing installer apps, marking them as downloaded. The system groups installers by family, probes file sizes via network requests, and prepares download manifests, handling legacy assembly requirements for older versions.

macUSB/Features/Downloader/Logic/Discovery · high confidence

The analysis logic has been restructured into dedicated modules (AnalysisFlow, FileSelection, SourceCapacityPolicy, UsbDrives, OperationActivity) to improve maintainability and behavior. The analysis flow now supports timeout-driven cleanup for disk image mounting, with a fallback to Linux (bsdtar) detection if macOS mounting times out. It also introduces immediate target switching for macOS Option targets and validates selected macOS app installers, including architecture checks and Rosetta installation flows. USB target selection now distinguishes between physical drives and macOS Option targets, requiring whole-disk targets for PPC and restore workflows. File selection logic has been refined to handle drag-and-drop and file picker inputs for .dmg, .iso, .cdr, and .app files, ensuring proper cleanup of previous mounts. Capacity requirements are now dynamically calculated based on source image file size, with a fallback to 16GB if the size cannot be determined.

macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic · high confidence

The macOS analysis logic has been reorganized into dedicated modules to improve clarity and maintainability. This change introduces robust architecture compatibility checks for \createinstallmedia\-based installers, detecting Intel vs. Apple Silicon requirements and handling Rosetta availability for legacy Intel installers on Apple Silicon hosts. It also enhances legacy system detection, explicitly classifying PowerPC-based installers (Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard) and blocking unsupported versions like Panther. Additionally, the refactoring includes improved validation for mounted disk images, better handling of macOS beta/seed installers, and updated metadata parsing for modern macOS versions (including Golden Gate and Tahoe codenames).

macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic/macOS · high confidence

The macOS download workflow has been restructured into modular components to enhance stability and user feedback. The downloader now prevents system sleep during active downloads to avoid interruptions. It features a robust retry mechanism that automatically waits for up to 60 seconds if the internet connection is lost, rather than failing immediately. Disk space checks have been improved to verify temporary storage capacity before starting, and file naming logic now handles legacy installer workflows more gracefully. Users will see clearer status messages, accurate transfer speeds, and better error reporting for issues like insufficient space or permission failures.

macUSB/Features/Downloader/Logic/Download · high confidence

The downloader's installer assembly logic has been restructured into a modular system that supports three distinct build paths: a modern helper-based flow, a legacy flow using InstallAssistantAuto.pkg and InstallESD.dmg, and an oldest-system flow handling older disk images. This change introduces collision-safe naming for the final installer app in /Applications, adds retry logic with forced fallback for detaching disk images, and implements granular progress reporting for file operations and external commands like pkgutil and hdiutil.

macUSB/Features/Downloader/Logic/Assembly · high confidence

The application now installs two distinct LaunchDaemon plist files to manage the background helper process: one for the release build (com.kruszoneq.macusb.helper) and one for the debug build (com.kruszoneq.macusb.helper.debug). This separation allows the debug and release versions of the helper to coexist or be managed independently, ensuring that debugging sessions do not interfere with the production runtime environment.

macUSB/Resources/LaunchDaemons · high confidence

The Localizable.xcstrings resource file has been updated with new and revised Polish translations. This includes specific formatting adjustments for composite strings (e.g., "%@ %@" to "%1$@ %2$@") and time duration formats (e.g., "%02dm %02ds" to "%1$02dm %2$02ds") to ensure correct argument ordering in Polish grammar, as well as new UI text such as the prompt for missing installers.

macUSB/Resources · high confidence

The application now detects Windows ISOs and classifies them by family (Windows XP through 11 and Windows Server 2003 through 2025), architecture (32-bit, 64-bit, ARM), and service pack. It scans the mounted image for specific boot markers to determine whether the image supports BIOS or UEFI boot modes, then applies version-specific rules to determine which boot modes are eligible for the creation workflow. Unsupported families (Windows XP, Windows Server 2003) and images lacking an eligible boot mode are marked as unsupported, and the system checks for the presence of required toolchains like wimlib to gate the workflow.

macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic/Windows · high confidence

The Windows installation workflow has been expanded to handle split WIM files (requiring wimlib), generate autounattend.xml configurations for Windows 10 and 11, and allow users to select BIOS or UEFI boot modes where supported. The UI now includes a dedicated progress view with stage-specific icons and speed visibility, a prerequisite gate that checks for wimlib and Homebrew, and a boot mode card that restricts selection based on the detected Windows version (e.g., UEFI-only for Windows 11). Additionally, the workflow assigns specific volume labels to target drives and includes logic to handle unmounting conflicts and macUSBoot preflight checks.

macUSB/Features/Installation/Windows · high confidence

The downloader window now prevents access while a USB creation process is in progress by checking \MenuState.shared.isDownloaderAccessBlocked\ before presenting. Opening the window also locks language changes via \MenuState.shared.lockLanguageChanges\ to ensure UI consistency during the download workflow. Additionally, the window manager now tracks the active operation using \AppActiveOperationRegistry\, ensuring proper lifecycle management when the window is closed.

macUSB/Features/Downloader · high confidence

The macUSB project now includes an Info.plist declaring support for 13 localizations (pl, en, de, ja, fr, es, pt-BR, zh-Hans, ru, it, uk, vi, tr) and entitlements files configuring Apple events access for debug and release builds. The initial SwiftData-based template code (ContentView, Item, and macUSBApp) has been removed, leaving the app structure ready for custom implementation.

macUSB · high confidence

Written by watchdog.canine.dev from the codebase's own history, inside the signed delivery this page is composed from.

• CAI 55 → 50 (-5.8)
• Rubric changed (rubric-2026.09.11 → rubric-2026.09.18) — scores are not directly comparable.

• Code Health 91 → 81 (-9.6)
• Architecture 100 → 99 (-0.9)
• Maturity 68 → 67 (-0.6)
• Readiness 24 → 26 (+1.6)
• Security 100 → 100 (+0.0)
• Performance 61 (new)

• Duplicated block (12 lines × 3) (macUSBHelper/Service/PrivilegedHelperService.swift)
• Duplicated block (13 lines × 2) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic/Linux/AnalysisLogicLinuxLifecycle.swift)
• Duplicated block (14 lines × 2) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic/Linux/AnalysisLogicLinuxLifecycle.swift)
• Duplicated block (15 lines × 2) (macUSB/Features/Installation/CreatorHelperLogic.swift)
• Duplicated block (24 lines × 2) (macUSB/Shared/Services/Helper/PrivilegedOperationClientCapabilities.swift)
• Duplicated block (25–27 lines × 2) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic/macOS/AnalysisLogicMacOSCompatibility.swift)
• Duplicated block (37 lines × 2) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic/macOS/AnalysisLogicMacOSCompatibility.swift)
• Duplicated block (5 lines × 8) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/SystemAnalysisView.swift)
• Duplicated block (6–7 lines × 7) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/SystemAnalysisView.swift)
• Duplicated block (7–19 lines × 11) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/SystemAnalysisView.swift)
• Duplicated block (8 lines × 2) (macUSB/Shared/Services/Helper/HelperService/HelperServiceDiagnostics.swift)
• Members sharing a duplicated core (4 members, 50+ identical tokens) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• Members sharing a duplicated core (4 members, 50+ identical tokens) (macUSBHelper/Workflow/Windows/HelperWorkflowWindowsSourceLogic.swift)
• Members sharing a duplicated core (5 members, 50+ identical tokens) (macUSB/Features/Installation/CreatorHelperLogic.swift)
• Members sharing a duplicated core (6 members, 50+ identical tokens) (macUSB/Features/Downloader/Logic/Discovery/MacOSDiscoveryModels.swift)
• MethodTooLong: UniversalInstallationView.invalidateMacOSRosettaChecks (macUSB/Features/Installation/UniversalInstallationView.swift)
• Near-duplicate member pair (109 shared lines) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/Logic/macOS/AnalysisLogicMacOSCompatibility.swift)

• AnalysisLogic.applyMacosCompatibilityForAppInstaller (cognitive 79) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.applyMacosCompatibilityForAppInstaller (cyclomatic 77) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.applyMacosCompatibilityForMountedInstaller (cognitive 91) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.applyMacosCompatibilityForMountedInstaller (cyclomatic 83) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.classifyLinuxDistribution (cognitive 77) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.classifyLinuxDistribution (cyclomatic 67) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.classifyWindowsFamily (cognitive 27) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.classifyWindowsFamily (cyclomatic 26) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.classifyWindowsServerFamily (cognitive 47) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.classifyWindowsServerFamily (cyclomatic 40) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.detachMountedImageAfterAnalysisTimeout (cognitive 17) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.extractWindowsServicePack (cognitive 21) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.extractWindowsServicePack (cyclomatic 16) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.formatMarketingVersion (cognitive 19) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.formatMarketingVersion (cyclomatic 20) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.handleDrop (cognitive 17) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.indexLinuxArchive (cognitive 23) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.indexLinuxArchive (cyclomatic 16) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.linuxAttachSessionForImagePath (cognitive 25) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• AnalysisLogic.linuxAttachSessionForImagePath (cyclomatic 16) (macUSB/Features/Analysis/AnalysisLogic.swift)
• …and 123 more

• 28 commits — 26 feature/other, 2 fixes

• macUSB/Features — 7 commits
• (root) — 5 commits
• docs/reference — 5 commits
• (repo) — 4 commits
• docs/readme-assets — 2 commits
• macUSB.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj — 2 commits
• docs/CHANGELOG.md — 1 commit
• macUSB/Resources — 1 commit
• macUSB/macUSBIcon.icon — 1 commit

• fix: Fix macUSBoot resource packaging
• fix: Merge pull request #118 from Kruszoneq/fix/helper_lifecycle
• change: Add v2.5 release notes
• change: Clarify README compatibility and image writing guidance
• change: Classify PPC installers as supported
• change: Improve Rosetta installation feedback
• change: Isolate bundled helper manifests by configuration
• change: Keep physical targets visible with Option volumes
• change: Keep the selected macOS USB target visible
• change: Make macOS Option target switching immediate
• change: Manage helper lifetime with the app
• change: Merge pull request #115 from Kruszoneq/improvement/rosetta_button
• change: Merge pull request #116 from Kruszoneq/improvement/macos_usb_target
• change: Merge pull request #119 from Kruszoneq/development
• change: Refine README content and formatting
• change: Refine application icon appearance
• change: Remove obsolete APFS note from README
• change: Remove obsolete USB localization entries
• change: Require whole-disk targets for PPC and restore workflows
• change: Restore the USB target picker
• …and 8 more

Written by watchdog.canine.dev from the codebase's own history, inside the signed delivery this page is composed from.

Kruszoneq/macUSB was measured the same way every project in this corpus was: the same rubric, at a pinned commit, with the result published in full. Point a surveyor at a repository you know and see whether you agree with it.