How to install Tails on USB flash drive or SD card on macOS

Requirements

USB flash drive or SD card (faster is better)
Computer running macOS Big Sur or Monterey

Caveats

When copy/pasting commands that start with $, strip out $ as this character is not part of the command

Guide

Step 1: install Homebrew

$ /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

$ uname -m | grep arm64 && echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/opt/homebrew/bin' >> ~/.zshrc && source ~/.zshrc

Step 2: disable Homebrew analytics

brew analytics off

Step 3: install GnuPG

brew install gnupg

Step 4: import “Tails developers” PGP public key

$ curl https://tails.boum.org/tails-signing.key | gpg --import
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 1341k  100 1341k    0     0  1451k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1450k
gpg: key 0xDBB802B258ACD84F: 2170 signatures not checked due to missing keys
gpg: key 0xDBB802B258ACD84F: public key "Tails developers (offline long-term identity key) <tails@boum.org>" imported
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
gpg: key 0xA3A31BAD5A2A5B10: no user ID for key signature packet of class 10
gpg: marginals needed: 3  completes needed: 1  trust model: pgp
gpg: depth: 0  valid:   3  signed:   0  trust: 0-, 0q, 0n, 0m, 0f, 3u

imported: 1

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Step 5: download Tails release

Go to https://tails.boum.org/install/download/index.en.html and download latest release and associated PGP signature (found under “or download the OpenPGP signature”) to ~/Downloads folder.

Step 6: verify Tails release (learn how here)

Replace 4.25 with latest release semver.

$ gpg --verify ~/Downloads/tails-amd64-4.25.img.sig
gpg: assuming signed data in '/Users/sunknudsen/Downloads/tails-amd64-4.25.img'
gpg: Signature made Mon  6 Dec 11:19:38 2021 EST
gpg:                using RSA key 05469FB85EAD6589B43D41D3D21DAD38AF281C0B
gpg: Good signature from "Tails developers (offline long-term identity key) <tails@boum.org>" [unknown]
gpg:                 aka "Tails developers <tails@boum.org>" [unknown]
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg:          There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: A490 D0F4 D311 A415 3E2B  B7CA DBB8 02B2 58AC D84F
     Subkey fingerprint: 0546 9FB8 5EAD 6589 B43D  41D3 D21D AD38 AF28 1C0B

Good signature

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Step 7: copy Tails to USB flash drive or SD card

WARNING: DO NOT RUN THE FOLLOWING COMMANDS AS-IS.

Run diskutil list to find disk ID of USB flash drive or SD card to overwrite with Tails (disk4 in the following example).

Replace diskn and rdiskn with disk ID of USB flash drive or SD card (disk4 and rdisk4 in the following example) and tails-amd64-4.25.img with current image.

$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0 (internal):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                         500.3 GB   disk0
   1:             Apple_APFS_ISC                         524.3 MB   disk0s1
   2:                 Apple_APFS Container disk3         494.4 GB   disk0s2
   3:        Apple_APFS_Recovery                         5.4 GB     disk0s3

/dev/disk3 (synthesized):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:      APFS Container Scheme -                      +494.4 GB   disk3
                                 Physical Store disk0s2
   1:                APFS Volume Macintosh HD            15.3 GB    disk3s1
   2:              APFS Snapshot com.apple.os.update-... 15.3 GB    disk3s1s1
   3:                APFS Volume Preboot                 328.4 MB   disk3s2
   4:                APFS Volume Recovery                815.1 MB   disk3s3
   5:                APFS Volume Data                    439.3 GB   disk3s5
   6:                APFS Volume VM                      7.5 GB     disk3s6

/dev/disk4 (external, physical):
   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *32.1 GB    disk4
   1:               Windows_NTFS Untitled                32.1 GB    disk4s1

$ sudo diskutil unmount /dev/diskn
disk4 was already unmounted or it has a partitioning scheme so use "diskutil unmountDisk" instead

$ sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskn (if previous step fails)
Unmount of all volumes on disk4 was successful

$ sudo dd bs=1m if=$HOME/Downloads/tails-amd64-4.25.img of=/dev/rdiskn
1139+0 records in
1139+0 records out
1194328064 bytes transferred in 49.463690 secs (24145551 bytes/sec)

$ sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskn
Unmount of all volumes on disk4 was successful

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