A bootable Mac OS X thumb drive comes in handy when you need to troubleshoot OS issues for yourself, your family, or your friends.

Follow these steps to take to create a bootable USB installer drive for macOS Sierra to deploy version 10.12 of Apple's OS on supported devices.

Thankfully, it’s easy to create a bootable install drive from the Mountain Lion installer that you download from the Mac App Store. I show you how, below.

Though you can install Mavericks (OS X 10.9) directly from your Mac's hard drive, a bootable installer drive can be more convenient for installing the OS onto multiple Macs. And if your Mac is ...

Wait until a new window pops up informing you your bootable installer has been created and is ready to use. Once complete, eject the USB drive and put it away for safekeeping.