Yosemite download is insanely slow (nothing wrong with my network)

Hi Guys.. I had the same problem when updating from Mountain Lion to Yosemite. It was solved by pausing the download of OS Yosemite, adding the latest security update from App store updates for Mountain Lion, and bingo.. Up to this point, I had downloaded 2GB of 5GB when the download suddenly slowed to a crawl. I paused and restarted the download a number of times with no joy... Following this security update, everything normal... Hope this helps.. Yosemite is cool..!

I posted this question at the exact same time you did. Same issue here. Dead slow download speeds. 60mb in an hour for me so far. Tells me almost 2 days to complete..

I'm having the same exact problem, the very first time I tried downloading Yosemite it loaded up to 2gb and it stayed there for hours and then I had to restart the download and now its downloading really slow like a mb every other min

Ive been at 2.25gb for the last 20 mins, its taken me two days to get 2.25gb and now its not going any further

i though just me that has this problem, i'm wrong.. other users have this problem too. downloaded 1.0.1GB and it's telling me 1 day 4 hours to complete!

I had this problem to the second time i tried to download Yosemite. I downloaded it and cancelled it a couple of times and then boom. Started downloading in full speed. Done in 2 min.

OH NOO, same problem here. Installed it last week, quite fast I could say. Mac crashed today and booted with command R to reinstall, guess what, Download is painfully slow and it's still claiming to need 30 more hours. I'm doomed!!!!

Starting to miss Windows.

I had the same problem with a very slow download of Yosemite, I was using OS X Mavericks. My download was going to take about 2 days at 20 KB/sec and I knew my system was capable of 2 MB/sec or 100 times more speed. My Mac and network connection was otherwise working perfectly and at good speed as is the usual situation. I have an Apple TV and that was working great indicating Apple's giant server system was OK. Very few people seemed to be having this slow download problem.

I tried a number of things without success, including:

- quit all common Mac apps except Activity Monitor

- reboot VDSL modem/router

- reboot Mac

- pause/resume Yosemite download many times (trying to randomly grab a good Apple server/connection)

- try wired connection to Mac as well as Wi-Fi. Both are working fine and capable of 2 MB/sec

- reset Safari (someone said it helped him but I'm not sure why)

- Force Quit process "storeagent" (which does the downloading)

Then I found comments somewhere that indicated the problem might be something related to internet problems in western USA and I was probably using that part of the internet since I am located in west Canada near Vancouver BC. Some people had solved their problem by switching from their ISP's DNS servers to other public DNS servers in the east USA.

My ISP is Telus and I was using one of their DNS servers in my area, as automatically assigned. I tried one of the east USA DNS servers (I think it was a Comcast one) and it didn't work for the download and Safari could not connect to anything. Then I tried switching to the Google DNS servers at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and the download took off at the expected 2 MB/sec and it was done in less than an hour! Another half hour and I was running Yosemite and it runs great on my 2011 Mac Mini.

Here is the procedure that worked for me:

- pause the Yosemite download with the pause/resume button in App Store

- Force Quit process "storeagent" using Activity Monitor (this may not be necessary)

- Quit the App Store

- change DNS Servers to Google DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 in System Preference / Network / Advanced / DNS. This effects the Mac only.

- for the above step you should write down your original DNS server settings in case you need to change them back

- do some browsing in Safari or other browser to confirm new DNS is working OK

- restart the App Store

- Resume Yosemite download with App Store "resume" button. A new version of process storeagent should start working

- see if it now downloads faster

That's what worked for me. Good luck!

I'm experiencing the same problem, extremely slow download of Yosemite - seems to be stuck around 220MB of 5.16GB complete, and showing between 2 to 5(!) days left to complete... (same for an attempt to update to iTunes 12.0.1 earlier in the day - I gave up on that, it was sooo slow and never did complete)

reading @Frank252's post above, I thought perhaps that would be a solution for me - I'm also on Telus ISP (25Mbps down) and located in Vancouver.

however after changing my DNS settings to Google DNS servers as suggested, I found no difference - the download seems to be trickling onward a MB or so every once in a while but still showing between 2~5 days left to download... 😟

I tried changing the DNS server settings both on my router and also directly on my iMac (running Mavericks, BTW) - no difference. I've tried pausing/quitting the App Store and also rebooting several times. no difference.

any other suggestions? it it simply that Apple's servers are slow for everybody?

Updating the latest security updates from Maverick (OS X Mavericks 10.9.5) fixed the issue in my case. The security update was also slow but it was just 300mb, so, that finished in 20min. Now it says in about 50 minutes, Yosemite will be finishing the download.

Hi there. I was having this issue as well. After setting the DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 the download speed was still slow. I have recently fixed this problem.

Please follow Frank252'sdirections but additionally run one of these commands in a terminal window to flush out the faulty DNS lookup table.

• Mac OSX 10.10 (Yosemite) sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache
• Mac OSX 10.9 (Mavericks): dscacheutil -flushcache;sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
• Mac OSX 10.7 & 10.8 (Lions) : sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder
• Mac OSX 10.5 & 10.6 (Leopards) : dscacheutil -flushcache
• Mac OSX 10.4 (Tiger) : lookupd -flushcache

Voila! No longer 5 days, and instead 1hr6min.

Does it not seem crazy that Apple appears to be doing nothing about these download speeds? I am also experiencing extremely slow speed for downloading Yosemite; my Mac has been downloading Yosemite for two complete days and it has managed to get 2.12 G of the package. My iMac tells me I have three more days and 17 hours to go. Did Apple know that it was going to take me 6-odd days to download their product? And it isn't like people are keeping quiet about this; there are hundreds of messages in forums about the issue, but very little in the mass media, and zilch from Apple itself. It is incomprehensible that this situation is what Apple wants or expected. Apple has clearly screwed up somewhere.

By the way, I got to 2.13 G and I have experienced an "error."

thanks for the additional suggestions.

I had already successfully downloaded the latest Mavericks security update yesterday (it was also extremely slow to download, but small enough to complete finally).

today I additionally tried ryanbr's suggestion to flush the DNS table after changing DNS servers to google.

still no dice. after restarting the App Store and resuming the update, the download is still creeping along, barely moving, and still showing between 2 - 5 days remaining ... I suppose on the positive side, almost 300MB of the >5GB download is now complete