Where does App Store download files to?

By default for most of the time it should be /Applications folder. However, with your case, I think the combo update should not even be available (since you already had the OS and only needed the delta update), so it might be different. Just give it a try.

You can check for the temporary file that the storeagent downloads by going to the Activity Monitor and looking at the open files tab. There you'll find the installer package. But since this is a temporary location I do not know how it's handled after the download is complete.

I ran the XCode update and the folder stayed there for the full installation. So it might be possible to grab the package if the installer isn't finished so the storeagent keeps the file araound till the installer finishes up but deletes it right after.

I wanted this information because I had a problem upgrading iPhoto to 9.4.3 and not even the Genious Bar™ was able to make it update. It was suggested I may need to reinstall Mac OS entirely. If I was going to have to do that, which would take days as I use a lot of large proprietary software implementations such as Adobe Creative Suite which would also have to be deactivated, reinstalled and reactivated, I decided to try to fix it myself. So I checked my Time Machine backup, turned off Time Machine and had a poke around on my disk. I know that Apple prefers we don't look at our filesystems this way, however, it has been maintained in many court decisions that the contents of our hard drives are ours to do with as we please. USE THIS INFORMATION AT YOUR OWN RISK. IT'S MORE LIKELY THAT THIS INFORMATION WILL HELP YOU HELP A TECHNICIAN SOLVE THE PROBLEM THAN FIXING IT YOURSELF WITHOUT A KNOWLEDGE OF BSD AND UNIX.

I know it's been a while, however, there is better information available about App Store download locations, this information should be handled very carefully as you'll be viewing areas of your filesystem that are not considered ‘end-user friendly’.

For instance, I had a problem with my Internet connection and received a corrupted PKG for my iPhoto 9.4.3 update. The update refused to install even after I uninstalled iPhoto and asked it to reinstall.

I viewed my Console when attempting to upgrade iPhoto and saw that it was attempting to access a PKG file called:

mzpsxxxx03867858650xxxx.pkg

from a Console system message entry that looked like:

26/06/13 12:34:39.041 PM App Store[4183]: PKDistributionController: Found asset mzpsxxxx03867858650xxxx.pkg on disk for item 4xxxxxx1 - Size 2xxxxxx2

Upon searching my filesystem with a command in terminal, I discovered that the corrupted PKG file was located at:

/private/var/folders/6x/g122yp5sxxxxxxv149g440000gp/C/com.apple.appstore/40898xx xx/

This location is likely to be referenced by an internal OS database, and I basically just had to hope that removing the file would allow the database to clear the entry and force the PKG file to download again.

I deleted the file and restarted, asked iPhoto to install in the App Store, and everything went smoothly. After 20 or so other attempts, following Apple's support info, and asking colleagues, this was the ONLY solution to the problem without completely reinstalling Mac OS.

It's interesting that we don't find much information about these storage locations or information about solving App Store problems when PKG files get corrupted during transfer or installation, it's likely that Apple scrubs this information from the Apple Support Communities and I'll be curious to see how long this post lasts on the site.

The correct answer is something more like this:

Macintosh HD ▸ private ▸ var ▸ folders ▸ tj ▸ 56z6lgjj0175c7h_wcp814bh0000gn ▸ C ▸ com.apple.appstore ▸ 675248567

Took me a while to find it but I kept searching while the App Store was re-downloading Mavericks.

To prevent deleting the downloaded .pkg file by storeag immediately after installation, you must start the download and stop installd after it by running in the terminal window:

sudo killall -STOP installd

Great. I downloaded the update of Xcode from my desktop while the update was downloaded 25% on my laptop so I canceled the update on my laptop, now I have to find the cache and remove it. This helps! 🙂

You're Awesome. Thanks you helped me get a job with this.

The easiest way to find where your downloads are stored is to enable the App Store debug menu with this terminal command:

defaults write com.apple.appstore ShowDebugMenu -bool true

Then, in the Debug menu, use the Show download folder... command.

There are some other handy tools in the menu, including Reset Application if things really get tangled up.

-Ric

Thanks. Solved my problem. And, finding hidden menus is always a bonus when trying to figure something out.

/Library/Updates is the new path

I confirmed this is the new path, just check at my 12.12.2 download. all files are reside in /Library/Updates