Looking for a way to burn an ISO image file to a CD or DVD on your Mac? Luckily, just as you can mount and burn ISO images files in Windows 8/10 without additional software, you can also do the same thing in OS X.

There are a couple of different ways you can burn an ISO image in OS X and it really depends on what version you have installed. For the last several years, you could use Disk Utility to mount the ISO image and then burn it to a disc.

However, with the latest release of OS X, 10.11 El Capitan, Apple has removed the burning functionality from Disk Utility. You can still burn ISO images in El Capitan, but you have to use Finder instead. The Finder method also works on older versions of OS X too.

1. #5 Burn-OSX Advanced Burner (Non-bootable CD/DVD) Burn-OSX is open-source utility and it is a very basic tool for ISO burning that you can also use to convert and burn audio and video files before burning. You won't be able to edit ISO files, but you do have access to some advanced settings like choosing the right file system to suit your ISO.
2. Looking for a way to burn an ISO image file to a CD or DVD on your Mac? Luckily, just as you can mount and burn ISO images files in Windows 8/10 without additional software, you can also do the same thing in OS X. There are a couple of different ways you can burn an ISO image in OS X and it really depends on what version you have installed.

I have downloaded Mac.OSX.Mountain.Lion.v10.8.3 and I have never burned a dmg file. How to burn this operating system in a dvd?

Lastly, you can use Terminal and the hdiutil command to burn an ISO image to disc if you are comfortable using that tool. In this article, I’ll show you all three methods for burning ISO images in OS X.

Finder Method

The Finder method is now the most universal method for burning ISO images in OS X since it’s supported on pretty much all versions. It’s also extremely easy to do. First, open a new Finder window, navigate to the location of your ISO file and then single click on it to select it.

Now go ahead and click on File and click on Burn Disk Image at the bottom of the list.

If you don’t already have a disc in your drive, you’ll be asked to insert one. Then just click the Burn button to start the burn process.

Another quick way to burn the ISO image file is to just right-click on the file and choose Burn Disk Image. As long as you have a disc in the drive, the burn process will start immediately.

Disk Utility Method

If you are running OS X 10.10 or lower, you can also use the Disk Utility method to burn your ISO image. Open Disk Utility by clicking on the Spotlight icon (magnifying glass) at the top right of your screen and type in disk utility.

Now click on File and then Open Disk Image.

The ISO image will show up in the left-hand side along with the list of hard drives, etc. Click on the ISO file and then click on the Burn button at the top.

Pop your disc into the drive and click the Burn button to start the process. As mentioned earlier, this no longer works on OS X 10.11 El Capitan.

Terminal Method

Lastly, if you love using the Terminal, you can type a simple command to burn the ISO image file.

I would suggest copying the file to an easy location like your desktop and renaming the file to something short too. In my case, I copied the file to my desktop and renamed it to just ubuntu.iso. I navigated to the desktop by typing in CD Desktop and then typed in hdiutil burn ubuntu.iso.

If you have a disc in the drive before you run the command, the burn process will start automatically. Otherwise, it’ll ask you to insert a disc. Those are all the ways you can burn your ISO image on a Mac without third-party software! If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Enjoy!

Hint author here. I'll agree that in most cases you would be better off using a USB flash drive (8 gig drives cost practically nothing these days.) In my case, my employer asked that I create some bootable DVDs, and I didn't want to have to order a bunch of dual-layers. I'm sure there are others in similar circumstances.

I haven't tried the script, but it probably won't work in bash without properly escaping and/or quoting the paths with spaces on them.

You're absolutely right - good catch. The paths were fully escaped when I submitted the hint, but it looks like the backslashes got stripped out after submission.
I'll see about getting it fixed. In the meantime, you can download the escaped version here:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/10577704/create-mountain-lion-dvd.zip

I've fixed it.

Typhoon14 said:
'but it looks like the backslashes got stripped out after submission.'
Were they back slashes, or forward slashes?

deleted

I had the install app in a Downloads folder. You will need to change that reference to where your copy of the app is located. This ran in Terminal, after I saved the text as 'MLresize.sh', using nano, and ran on the file.

(I've got a lot of blank DVDs. And they won't get zapped by lightning like my Base Station did.)

The script ran in a few minutes, much less time than actually burning the DVD.
I just dropped the created .dmg file into Disk Utility, selected it, and clicked on burn.
After burning, the disc shows in System Preferences->Startup Disk as bootable.
Although I haven't tried it out yet.

How exactly does this work? How can you reduce the uncompressed size of an image without losing any data?

The image itself has a fixed size of 4.75 GB, but contains only 4.35 GB of data. All we're doing is trimming the free space.

So you can't just use Image/Resize in Disk Utility? (I'd try it, but I don't have Mountain Lion.)

Resize only works for read/write disk images, so, no.

I just copy/pasted the stuff for terminal, not bothering with the bash and everything worked as advertised. Verifying burnt disc now. Thanks!!

@kirkmc Why do you need Lion DiskMaker? Can't you just restore the InstallESD image in Install X Mountain Lion/Contents/SharedSupport using Disk Utility?
I have an installer on a USB and an SDHC Card using the restore method.

@derekJAB,
you can in fact restore InstallESD.dmg. Just remember to mount the dmg for Mountain Lion.
If you don't, disk utility will throw you an error.

for somehow I need to add 'sleep' before detach to avoid resource busy
#! /bin/bash
# 2012-08-07 01 prw from Mac OS X Hints web site...
# added backslash before spaces in image names...
# Should be run on /Volumes/yourhddvolumename not on the SSD
# 2012-08-07 02 prw References are all relative, not absolute. So SSD it is.
# 2012-09-13 03 JFOC adding some sleep to avoid resource busy on detach
# Remove any old copies of the DVD image before we begin.
rm -f /private/tmp/Mountain Lion DVD Image read-write.dmg
echo 'Creating DVD Image...'
hdiutil create -size 4.2g -volname 'Mac OS X Install ESD' /private/tmp/Mountain Lion DVD Image read-write.dmg -fs HFS+ -layout SPUD
hdiutil attach -nobrowse /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/admin/Downloads/Mountain Lion 10.8/InstallESD.dmg
hdiutil attach -nobrowse /private/tmp/Mountain Lion DVD Image read-write.dmg
echo 'Copying Mountain Lion to new image...'
cp -pRv /Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD/* /Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD 1/
sleep 10
hdiutil detach /Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD 1
sleep 10
hdiutil detach /Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD
sleep 10
echo 'Converting to read-only...'
hdiutil convert /private/tmp/Mountain Lion DVD Image read-write.dmg -format UDZO -o ~/Mountain Lion DVD ImageLion.dmg
sleep 10
rm -f /private/tmp/Mountain Lion DVD Image read-write.dmg
echo 'Image Creation Complete. Please burn '~/Mountain Lion DVD ImageLion.dmg' to a DVD using Disk Utility.'
open ~/
#-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Burn Os X Dmg To Dvd

If you do want to get the Mountain Lion installer InstallESD.dmg to fit on a single layer DVD, you can use the overburn feature of hdiutil in Mac OS X.
AFTER inserting a blank DVD, bring up terminal, navigate to the dmg folder and type:
hdiutil burn InstallESD.dmg
Depending on your brand of DVD your mileage may vary.

How To Burn Dmg To Dvd In Osx Free

You can infact burn the installer to a single layer DVD, using a feature called overburn. This is much simpler than it sounds..
AFTER inserting a blank DVD, bring up terminal, navigate to the dmg folder and type:
hdiutil burn InstallESD.dmg
Depending on your brand of DVD your mileage may vary. It's not unusual to get errors after finishing the burn but as long as the Finishing Burn message is shown, the disc will function as expected.

How To Burn Dmg To Dvd In Osx Download

How To Burn Mac Os X Dmg To Dvd In Windows

I think using any of these methods will cause the image to have a different checksum than the original. If that's not important to you, don't fret.
$ man hdiutil
-[no]optimizeimage do [not] optimize filesystem for burning.
Optimization can reduce the size of an HFS or
HFS+ volume to the size of the data contained
on the volume. This option will change what
is burned such that the disc will have a dif-
ferent checksum than the image it came from.
The default is to burn all blocks of the disk
image (minus any trailing Apple_Free).