El Capitan download stuck "waiting"

go to store, and click on "check for unfinished downloads" thats how i fixed it for me

I think it is waiting for you to login to the App Store. Just go to "Store -> View My Account", enter credentials and then go check your "Unfinished Downloads"!

I just had the same issue this morning when trying to download El Captian. First I tried all of the above with no such luck 😟 So I clicked on the X next to the El Capitan icon that appeared in my Applications folder and restarted the download and it worked fine. Hope this helps.

Thanks, that worked on my Macbook Pro.

F4 > Find El Capitan download > Hold Alt > Click the white cross and delete. Start all over again.

I have the same issue, tried "Check for Unfinished Download". That didn't worked, so I "signed out" off the app store, then it start downloading WHILE I was signing back into the app store. My account wasn't even logged in when it started downloading.

I had the same problem as well, on the App Store where you find OS X EL CAPITAN, simply press on the X, but at first stop downloading, you can stop downloading it by going to the Launchpad, click on OS X ELCAPITAN, then it will start shaking. then delete it. So, as i was saying, press on the X button, so instead of DOWNLOAD, it will show GET, so click on GET and your download will start from the beginning, I just fixed it yay!

I tried all of those helpful tricks and none of them worked for me on my Macbook. I finally turned off the WiFi and hard wired it to the network (using a network adapter) and it suddenly began to download just fine. Even though while on wireless I could surf the web just fine and access servers. Once I Hard wired the MacBook it downloaded and installed just fine.

Hope this helps someone.

This should work for most of you in this situation...

Simply go to the "STORE" tab in your app store.

From there you should have an option to "SIGN OUT". Sign out and your download should continue.

No terminal, No time machine, no re-boot. Just log out.

You're welcome 🙂

This was the Best and simplest advise ever, thank you.

I had this same problem for over a day with the icon in the dock saying "waiting". Doing "check for unfinished downloads" did nothing. Clicking Download in the Purchased area of the App store (Mac OS X 10.6.8) looked like it was doing something, but did nothing after a few seconds.

I finally right-clicked the OSX El Capitan icon in the dock, clicked Pause, then it showed Paused instead of Waiting. I right clicked it again and clicked Resume and now it shows "Downloading".

So, I know from experience doing this on other Macs (3-4 of them) that it's about 6-7gb, but hopefully the fact that it shows "Downloading" means this is fixed and I should be able to install later today or tomorrow.

Thanks. This one did it for me.

"F4 > Find El Capitan download > Hold Alt > Click the white cross and delete. Start all over again."

This helped me too. Thanks.

Check for unfinished downloads: Does nothing. Still stuck at 'waiting'

Can't click Pause, it's grayed out.

Logged in & out of Apple Store, no results.

Stuck like this for months. Not happy.

May have to spend time dragging this aluminum MacBook to the Apple Store, get a Genius bar appointment.

Had this problem too, tried uninstall any antivirus available, delete app store plists in the library, sign out-in to the app store without any result and finally boot the Mac on safe mode and..... it did start the download without any issue, right now its giving 3 hours estimated time, I guess its my internet speed. crossing my fingers

hope this will help someone there!!!🙂

Well, What I did to solve my problem was. I had a look at all these other "Replies" but none of them helped. So what i tried is while was downloading i just went ahead and updated all my other apps. That is when OS X El Captian started downloading

I Hope This Works For You! 🙂