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Trying to upgrade from Yosemite to either El Capitan or Sierra

Hi. I have an iphone 11 that apparently needs a Mac OS of El Capitan or newer in order to download photos/sync. My mid2013 Macbook Air currently runs Yosemite10.10.5. I could not find on Apple Store the original El Capitan 10.11.0 to install. Any of the subsequent 'updates' could be downloaded but did not successfully install (the message said that 10.11.0 was required first). After reading on the forums that the original installer for El Capitan no longer exists on Apple Store, the next option is to upgrade directly to Sierra. I downloaded Sierra, clicked to install it, and got the green tick saying 'install successful'. When I re-started the laptop and checked "About This Mac", it still shows Yosemite as the operating system. grrrrr


I'm obviously missing a major component in my understanding of how all of this works. All I want is to download my photos from the iphone 11 to my laptop.


Can someone please help with why my laptop is not showing any of these OS upgrades?


Thank you very much in advance.



MacBook Air 13", OS X 10.10

Posted on Dec 1, 2019 7:21 PM

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Posted on Dec 1, 2019 7:32 PM

This article contains a direct link to the installer download. I don't think El Capitan has ever been not-available. However, sometimes Apple encourage users to go to a higher macOS version if their computer will support it and one is available. So you may have seen Mojave offered, or even Catalina.


Upgrade to OS X El Capitan - https://support.apple.com/HT206886 - "OS X El Capitan remains available for Mac computers that can't upgrade to macOS High Sierra, or that need to upgrade to El Capitan first." Includes direct link to El Capitan installer app.


How to upgrade to macOS Mojave - https://support.apple.com/HT210190


How to upgrade to macOS Catalina [This document will eventually change to whatever the current MacOS happens to be.] - https://support.apple.com/HT201475



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Dec 1, 2019 7:32 PM in response to Wade1000

This article contains a direct link to the installer download. I don't think El Capitan has ever been not-available. However, sometimes Apple encourage users to go to a higher macOS version if their computer will support it and one is available. So you may have seen Mojave offered, or even Catalina.


Upgrade to OS X El Capitan - https://support.apple.com/HT206886 - "OS X El Capitan remains available for Mac computers that can't upgrade to macOS High Sierra, or that need to upgrade to El Capitan first." Includes direct link to El Capitan installer app.


How to upgrade to macOS Mojave - https://support.apple.com/HT210190


How to upgrade to macOS Catalina [This document will eventually change to whatever the current MacOS happens to be.] - https://support.apple.com/HT201475



Dec 1, 2019 7:36 PM in response to Limnos

Hi, thanks for responding so quickly. I have downloaded from this link 3 times without a successful installation. Everything indicates that the installation worked, but there is zero change in my computer. I then tried doing the same thing with the Sierra page on Apple. Same result (or lack thereof, actually).


Is this the Apple trying to tell me to upgrade to an even higher level operating system? Such as High Sierra or Catalina? Will either of these adversely affect my laptop (which runs perfectly on Yosemite except for my iphone capability). I've upgraded on past laptops to only have the laptop completely slow down.

Dec 1, 2019 7:43 PM in response to Wade1000

Hard to answer your questions about performance without knowing the computer's specifications. I'd ay with ElCap you want at least 8 GB RAM. I am not familiar with your model exactly and you can probably research upgrade possibilities as easily as I can (and you have more incentive to . ;-) ) Try everymac.com


I know I can download the installer (all multiple GB of it) using that link. I haven't tried running it on my Mavericks computer. Just grabbing it "in case".

Dec 1, 2019 10:52 PM in response to Wade1000

If you have followed the link to install El Capitan you will download InstallMACOSX.dmg.

double click on that and you will then get Install MACOSX.pkg, double click

on that and you will get an installation window (this does not install El Capitan),

follow the prompts, it tells you this will take 7MBs of disk space, hardly enough for the

installation of El Capitan. What it does do is convert the Install MACOSX.pkg to Install OS X El Capitan.app

which will be in your Application folder. Use that to install the OS.

If you have done the same for Sierra the same procedure applies and the Install macOS Sierra.app will be in your Applications folder.

Trying to upgrade from Yosemite to either El Capitan or Sierra

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