etcher

Etcher writes OS images to SD cards and USB drives, guards against writing to the wrong disk, and verifies every byte afterward.

Etcher is a tool for flashing OS images to SD cards and USB drives, safely and easily. The README calls it a powerful OS image flasher built with web technologies. Two promises carry the safety story. It protects users from accidentally writing to hard drives, and it ensures every byte of data was written correctly. For an operation that is one wrong click away from destroying data, those two guarantees are the entire product.

Beyond plain SD cards and USB drives, Etcher can directly flash Raspberry Pi devices that support USB device boot mode. That extends the tool beyond the typical image flashing scenario and into single board computer setup. The README frames the direct flash as another way to skip an extra step, which fits the tool's overall approach of making flashing painless.

Supported operating systems are listed precisely. Linux runs on most distributions with Intel 64 bit. Windows 10 and later with Intel 64 bit is covered. macOS 10.13 High Sierra and later works on both Intel and Apple Silicon. Pre made installers for all supported systems live on the downloads page. Etcher is also offered through the Arch User Repository for Manjaro and Arch systems, and it can be compiled from source using a package name. The README links to download, support, user documentation, contributing, and roadmap sections, with the tool developed by Balena.

Etcher's value is the safety net: it protects your hard drives and checks every byte written. For anyone who has overwritten the wrong disk once, that alone justifies the download.

• Source 1 · Project repository
• Source 2 · README