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Macbook Pro 13" 2015 with OS X Yosemite on board. I've been trying to install OS X El Capitan, but always get the following message: "This copy of the Install OS X El Capitan application can't be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading."

By the way this is not a date time issue, date is correct on my computer.

enter image description here

How can I fix this? Who knows the solution, please help.

presscorp
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  • Have you deleted the "Install OS X El Capitan" application bundle and downloaded it again? – user3439894 Nov 22 '15 at 17:21
  • & where did it come from? – Tetsujin Nov 22 '15 at 17:25
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    @user3439894 I'm actually trying to download it again. Internet connection is poor, so I'm waiting. And yeah, there is no previous copy of the installer app in /Applications/ directory. – presscorp Nov 22 '15 at 17:26
  • @Tetsujin App Store – presscorp Nov 22 '15 at 18:11
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    If you're already doing as the message suggested and haven't finished the new download and tried installing again, then why did you even post to begin with? If you're having trouble with maintaining a constant connection or have a connection fast enough to get it downloaded in a timely manner you may need to find a better connection for the download. – user3439894 Nov 22 '15 at 18:12
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    Try using a USB installer? – Munesawagi Mar 22 '16 at 21:40

13 Answers13

175

To save having to scroll right down to the newest answer to find this info…
Apple rebuilt all the installers in about 2020 to fix this issue once & for all - see Apple KB - How to Download macOS

Follow this tutorial. This applies to the reply from @Cazuma Nii Cavalcanti. In short once you are at the first install page go to tools in the nav bar and open the terminal, in the terminal type date MMDDHHmmYY replacing the letters as follows.

MM - 2 digit month  01 - 12
DD - 2 digit date   01 - 31
HH - 2 digit hour   01 - 24
mm - 2 digit minute 01 - 59
YY - 2 digit year   > 15

once that is done go through the install normally. I just tried it and it worked with a USB install of OS X (10.11 - El Capitan) and it worked like a charm!

If setting to correct date doesn't work. Set to a date just after the os release.

Tetsujin
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stmpy
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    This should be the accepted answer. – Chris Beck Feb 02 '16 at 04:22
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    I just met the same problem. After set the date to today (2016-02-29) it still failed. Then I set to an earlier date (2016-01-01) and it worked. Weird. – aleung Feb 29 '16 at 15:56
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    Setting a date near to the date your downloaded the installer , is a solution for fix the message and OS X El Capitan install begin normally and finish ok. –  Feb 20 '16 at 00:42
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    Set the date earlier from the current date e.g., if today it's the 29 Feb 2016 set it as the 1st Feb 2016. This worked for me. –  Feb 29 '16 at 18:43
  • you can just set the time in the system preferences back to let's say 29th of september 2015. –  Mar 07 '16 at 19:57
  • I have face same problem then I set the earlier date & time in terminal utility then it worked for me –  Mar 05 '16 at 14:54
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    The installer date made a big difference for me. When I set the date of the machine close to the date of the installer, installation proceeded with no difficulties. –  Feb 18 '16 at 06:16
  • Setting the Date close to the release date of the OS worked for me. – Omkar Mar 11 '16 at 11:18
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    It is arguably faster to type ntpdate pool.ntp.org. But this requires internet connection. – Jakub Fedyczak Mar 14 '16 at 21:04
  • For El Capitan, I just set it to Jan 1 2016 and it worked fine. – Thomas Antony Jul 12 '16 at 06:41
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    Jan 01 2016 00:00 worked for me too with El Capitan (since Sierra is unusable for me). Does this mean that all Appe's installers have a "best before" date? Then why the cryptic message???? Hate when they waste my time like this.... – Peter Andersson Oct 16 '16 at 21:55
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    Works great. I said date 0101010116 and away we go. – matt Nov 02 '16 at 14:11
  • I tried all the above. Then I found a post where you actually actually do not connect. Change the date to 0202020216 and it worked !http://capitalmacservice.com/os-x-installers-cannot-verified-tampered-corrupted/ – Elim Garak Apr 16 '17 at 23:52
  • What's happening here is likely that the installer is trying to check its code signature, which involves checking the validity of all the certificates in the certificate chain. All certificates have an expiration date, and the application itself is likely signed with a certificate that has since expired. By setting the date to a date in the past, for example, October 1, 2015, you'll allow the certificate check to complete successfully. – NSGod May 06 '17 at 16:53
  • I changed it to something in 2016, didn't work. My installer was downloaded in November 2015 so I set it to 2 days after the download date and it's working now! Thank you very much :) – unixb0y May 22 '18 at 22:39
  • I just want to say I avoided this for a while in all the searches I did because the datetime on the system was "correct". However it was technically tomorrow because the system was in UTC 5 hours ahead. That seems awful that somehow the timestamp checking does not account for that. I had to set it to "today" because the system choked on it being "tomorrow" since midnight was crossed over in UTC by that point. – Samuel Horwitz Nov 21 '18 at 02:42
  • The date command gave me an error, it worked when i did sudo date 0101010116 – Justin J James Dec 19 '19 at 21:51
  • I was installing Mountain Lion on a 11 year old Macbook running 10.6.8. Changing the date to just after Mountain Lion's release (a few days after 25 July, 2012) worked for me: sudo date 0108000012 – Patrick May 05 '20 at 07:09
  • Just want to mention that if you are connected to the internet then date 0101010116 will not work. You should give the correct date using the format mentioned above. Thats what worked for me at least – StuckInPhDNoMore Aug 14 '20 at 14:38
  • I have tried many different dates but I am always getting the same error message. In my case, I am trying to install Yosemite in a partition of a MBP 2012 running Catalina, but the problem seems the same. I've downloaded and re-downloaded the file from https://support.apple.com/en-om/HT211683 so I don't think it is corrupted. – Eugenio Dec 29 '20 at 09:47
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If you are confident in the integrity of your installation media, you can use the terminal to bypass this message completely. The below instructions are for installs performed via a bootable USB stick:

  1. From the top menu bar, open Applications → Terminal
  2. Enter: installer -pkg /Volumes/Mac\ OS\ X\ Install\ DVD/Packages/OSInstall.mpkg -target /Volumes/"XXX" where XXX is the name of the disk you're installing to.
  3. Press return and wait for the installation to say it's complete. You will not see any sort of progress display.

This allowed me to install El Capitan a couple of weeks ago. I didn't have any internet access at the time, and my Mac had a completely empty hard drive, so I was very happy that I could force the install to go through.

I suspect that this method could be adapted for live installations, but failing that, consider creating a bootable installer and then following the above instructions.

Wowfunhappy
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  • This is simpler than mucking with the system date and just as effective. I format my hard drive in recovery mode and then boot with command held down and my bootable installer plugged in. Launch the terminal and run the command. Takes a few minutes. I've installed El Capitan several times this way. Best part is, I keep reusing the same installer and never have to worry about the fact that I downloaded it 2 years ago. I'll never upgrade! Muahahaha... – Jared Mar 15 '18 at 19:50
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    One small detail that I missed the first two times I tried this is that OSInstall.mpkg has an m in it. It's .mpkg not .pkg – Jeremy Wiebe May 22 '18 at 21:02
  • This one works. Hassle free. Just make sure you type everything correctly. That was my only problem. – Afrowave Jan 02 '20 at 09:57
  • This answer worked for me. As Jared notes, it's a time-saver as well. – Parapluie Jan 16 '22 at 01:07
  • Tried everything else, this is what worked. Thank you! – irishwristwatch Apr 26 '22 at 23:14
  • Life saver. I followed steps listed in https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/388508/313607 to first create a bootable image of El Capitan on my latest M1 machine. The steps listed on apple's website didn't worked for me due to some verification apple does on the latest OS. After creating bootable image in the following the steps listed in the linked answer, I couldn't install due to verification issue. After following the steps in this answer, I was able to finally install it in my old Macbook Air 2017. Thank you! – PunitD Jul 19 '23 at 08:13
  • Terminal: saving us once more. Thanks a lot for this hint. – Piccolo Aug 29 '23 at 18:58
  • This is the ONLY solution that worked for me. – Angel Oct 03 '23 at 06:09
  • The only solution that works in 2024 for the dmg provided by Apple http://updates-http.cdn-apple.com/2019/cert/061-41424-20191024-218af9ec-cf50-4516-9011-228c78eda3d2/InstallMacOSX.dmg – bogdanw Feb 11 '24 at 07:18
15

I ran into this problem. I had installed a brand new SSD; I downloaded the installer and created a bootable USB stick. Everything looked raring to go. Hours later...

The ways to resolve this process:

  1. Try setting the date to today's date as documented EVERYWHERE. If the install still fails:

  2. Use htiutil to verify the checksum. Assuming you have the El Capitan download in the Applications folder, you can verify the download with the following command:

    hdiutil verify /Applications/Install\ OS\ X\ El\ Capitan.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg

  3. When did you download the installer? Apparently my problem was that I had downloaded the installer a number of days ago and the certificates had expired. If setting to today's date does not work; and the htiutil command came back with "is VALID"; try setting the date to the date your downloaded the installer.... or possible a few days earlier. I did that, and the install completed with no problems....

Good luck!

pRose_la
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    Indeed, changing the date to the date of the download make it work, I recommend using Wikipedia to check the release version in order to change the system date. – Rodrigo Polo Mar 11 '16 at 08:34
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    dude, god bless you, you saved my life :) – Isaac Feb 27 '17 at 18:53
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By the way this is not a date time issue, date is correct on my computer.

I think many people think setting the date to the current date automatically fixes the issue, but this is not the case. You have to remember the date you installed "El Capitan OS X installer.app" into your Application folder. For me, it was around Sept 2015. Right now is March 2016. When I got this error while reinstalling El Capitan OS X, I set the date to today's date (i.e. date 03061225616) and it did not work because I installed "El Capitan OS X installer.app" around Sept 2015 and the digital signature/certificates for my installer had expired by now. Once I reset the date to Sept 2015 (i.e. date 0923020415), the installation worked without a problem.

If you can neither remember nor correctly guess the date you installed "El Capitan OS X installer.app" into your Application folder, then you would have to delete it and reinstall it into your Applications folder so that the digital signature/certficates for the installer is no longer expired.

Also, setting the date manually in the terminal (i.e. date MMDDhhmmYY) worked for me. I heard setting the date automatically in the terminal (i.e. ntpdate -u time.apple.com) works for some people, but not for me. It most likely worked for them because they recently installed/reinstalled "El Capitan OS X installer.app" into their Application folder

This is the one that worked for me . I went to the terminal and typed

This as the date 0923020415

Using command “date 0923020415 “ and it worked .

Emmortal Malcolm
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kimbaudi
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  • This was exactly my problem. I downloaded the installer in Nov 2015 and setting the date properly (May 2016) would always fail. As soon as I changed it to Dec 2015 it worked great. Thanks so much! – Geesu May 17 '16 at 21:09
  • Yes! My date was correct. I was connected to the internet (after first not being connected), but it wasn't working. But, it still wouldn't install, but this worked perfectly. – Zonker.in.Geneva Dec 22 '16 at 20:55
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Actually there are two known possible causes for this message the show up. One is the obvious corrupted installer. Another less obvious and more tricky cause can be a reset internal clock in the machine, with a resulting date which is previous to the release of the OS installer, what will trigger this message too.

Hope this can help someone.

CreeperzEdge
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Cazuma Nii Cavalcanti
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    And a third just confirmed personally: the clock on the computer has to be set to a date near the date of the download. It may be that the installers just have a timeout built into them so there's likely a range of valid dates but setting the clock to the day of the download worked for me. – Perry Apr 17 '16 at 21:00
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I have found the solution for “This copy of the Install OS X El Capitan application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading” error!

If you have tried changing the date / time / on a startup disk, forget about it... Make sure you have an internet connection about 10Mbps at least. What you need to do are as follows :-

  1. Restart your mac. Press the Shift Key
  2. When you see apple logo, release the Shift Key
  3. You will go into SAFE MODE. Install & Download your OS X El Capitan in SAFE MODE.
  4. Make sure you delete existing 'Install Os X El Capitan.app' in Application
  5. Re-download the updates of Os X El Capitan.
  6. After finish downloading, everything is ready to go. Success rate 100%.
  7. You might experience the progress bar hanging around 80-90%. (Tested to let the progress bar run but no avail.)
  8. Force Restart again. Press the Shift Key
  9. When you see apple logo, release the Shift Key
  10. You will go into SAFE MODE again. Now let it run until you see the login screen!
  11. When you've seen the Desktop, that means everything is perfectly fine!
  12. Restart again and press nothing!
  13. Now you have an updated copy of OS X El Capitan!

** For Upgrades only **

user174151
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3

you could set the time with the date command, but you have to figure out the crazy format and type it in. There's a much easier way.

  1. Connect to wifi, then
  2. run ntpdate pool.ntp.org
  3. you can verify the time is set correctly by running date. Mine was set to the wrong timezone, but that doesn't really matter.

That's all I had to do to get my install to work.

adcurtin
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2

Apple installers have a 'best before date interally'

I just bought a used imac, and wanted to update it from Mavericks to Yosemite. This is what I did:

  • System Preferences -> Time and Date

  • Uncheck set time automatically.

  • Set time and date to 1 January 2014

  • Run the installer. No longer corrupt.

  • Set time and date back to automatic.

For Yosemite the critical date has to be before some time in February 2014. Other updates will be different. I think you have about 3 months after the next version is officially released.

Sherwood Botsford
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  • Can you update your answer with some evidence from Apple about 'critical date' as well as the Feb 2014 date you mention? I've never heard of this before and it would help if your answer had verification. – fsb Oct 19 '16 at 15:56
  • This answers makes zero sense. You can still download Yosemite (and Mavericks, and...) from the Mac App Store. It isn't like iOS where Apple stops signing installations from older versions after a certain date. – tubedogg Oct 19 '16 at 17:26
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    You cannot download Yosemite if you didn't download it once before. A downloaded copy will not install without the date change on the 4 machines I've done this with. you can test this: Create a new apple ID from a throw away address. Log in with that address into appstore. Try to find the Yosemite install file. It is possible that the problem is keyed to the C-time of downloaded file. – Sherwood Botsford Oct 21 '16 at 00:01
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March 2017 Success Confirmed This answer is relevant because: The solutions above did not (completely) work for me. Apple may have changed its check routine and date stamp in 2017. It offers an addition to reach a working solution.

MacBook Pro Quad 2.4GHz i7 Late 2011, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD, original 750GB HDD. Running OS 10.8 initially. After 4 years, time to upgrade the MacBook Pro which I run as a graphics workstation through a 27" monitor and standalone full size keyboard. Adobe CS6 and Office 360 are the major software. Hardware completed no issues (SSD into optical bay / 2 x 8GB Ram chips). For the OS I decided on El Capitan 10.11 since it is reported to have system / performance enhancements and Sierra is a step too far, turns too much off on this Mac.

Issues on trying to do this are well documented so I wont dwell, other than to say my last App Store download was 10.8 and so I wasn't 'allowed' to download 10.11 officially, even though it is more appropriate to my Mac than 10.12. This isn't about money or subversion. I would gladly pay for an official disc or download. I simply could not get one.

Routine

1) You will need the base installer application for El Capitan (which is what you would download from the app store if allowed). You can either get this off a Mac colleague (who has downloaded it previously), ebay, or Hackintosh (which is an unofficial website dedicated to running OSX on a Windows box).

Obviously certain risk involved here. Use a proven source, don't torrent. Waste of time and may be corrupt / subverted which just causes more frustration. Once you have the application put it in your applications folder.

Note: if you are concerned, run the Terminal verification command on the installer as noted by pRose_la above (credit due). Ensure it reports Verified on conclusion.

El Capitan installer app

Note: The app wont work at this stage. If you launch it you will get an endless 'verifying installation' bar or the screen noted in other posts (corrupt or tampered installation). Time stamp will be out of date.

2) Create a boot volume on an external USB Flash drive. This must be 8GB+ capacity. This is allowed by Apple and they give you the terminal code to do it here: Apple create an external boot drive

Note: the El Capitan installer must be in the Mac's root application folder for this to work as the terminal command goes there to get it. Also the Flash drive must be formatted with a GUID partition to boot the OS (El Capitan on Flash boot drive).

Note: there is an GUI app to do this for you DiscmakerX but its buggy and failed consistently for me with no indication to the problem (paths were correct, formatting correct).

3) NEW 2017: this is the addition to the process. At this point, I could boot remotely to Flash drive, access terminal to circumvent the date issue, launch the El Capitan installer. However, it would always get to 99% installation and then crash, sometimes with a final message - this installation is corrupt. I examined the El Capitan Installer app (right click the installer app / show package contents) and noted a folder called _CodeSignature. I went to my 'official' 10.8 installer app and lucked out... the same folder was in there. To be clear:

I copied the _CodeSignature folder from inside Install OS X Mountain Lion.app to the same position inside Install OS X El Capitan.app on the Flash drive.

enter image description here enter image description here

4) Restart the Mac with option (alt) key pressed and you will be presented with bootable volumes. Select your Flash Drive using the keyboard arrow keys and press enter. Give it 5 mins to boot up. Don't get impatient. The remote installation now went through perfectly. I have 10.11 installed on an SSD partition and updated to the latest version through Apple app store.

Note: You still NEED TO RESET THE DATE in terminal after your Flash drive boot and before you launch the El Capitan installer to bypass the initial date certificate issue. Details in posts above, remain valid. Set mine to the day after the application download date (find this date with Get Info on the installer app itself).

Conclusion This process worked for me in March 2017 on a late 2011 Mac running OS 10.8. I now intend to create remote installers for Yosemite and Maverick just in case I need them for my other Macs in future. Do I feel bad about this hack? Not really. Disappointed that I have had to go to these lengths to update a perfectly good Mac that cost me in excess of $4000... because I didn't choose to upgrade last year.

Applefanboy
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  • Off topic but useful intel for upgrading physical performance to match the heavier OS, the move to SSD in the optical drive offers a HUGE speed advantage on a late 2011 MacBook Pro as the optical drive bay connection is rated at 6GB/s (early models were 3GB/s) - the Crucial MX300 SSD is pulling (read/write) 395.2 / 413.6 MB/s compared to the Apple stock shipped drive internal bay @ 55.4 / 70.6 - you will need a caddy for the optical bay and you can of course buy two matching SSD's and Stripe RAID them to improve speed further. – Applefanboy Apr 13 '18 at 14:11
  • The fact that this info is useful does not make it relevant to the question. You should ask and and answer your own question so that this information can actually be found by the people who need it! – Wowfunhappy May 09 '18 at 15:36
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If you get this error message it is most likely not a problem with the installer, but rather an expired certificate.

Please see the article "Previously Downloaded OS X Installers No Longer Work". Fortunately, there is a very easy workaround for this.

"...due to an expired certificate, OS X installers downloaded prior to 14 February 2016 won’t work.

The Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Intermediate Certificate is required for all apps in the Mac App Store, including OS X installers. When used to sign an app, the certificate enables OS X to confirm that the app has not been corrupted or modified by an attacker. This certificate expired on 14 February 2016, causing error dialogs and preventing some apps from launching. Most affected apps have already been updated with the new certificate. But if you downloaded an OS X installer in case of trouble, you may be in for a surprise the next time you try to use it."

The above article was linked from here: "This copy of the Install OS X Yosemite application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading. | Need Help 4 Mac"

If you set your Date & Time prior to the date mentioned above before installing you can bypass the hitch, and the installer works normally. Simply set it back after the installation is complete and you're good to go. If you purchased an older OS like Yosemite before it was removed from the App Store it can be re-downloaded from the Purchases tab in your App Store account, and it should have an updated certificate.

shape
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2

These issues have long been fixed, as of 2022. Apple rebuilt all the installers.

Get new installers from Apple KB - How to Download macOS
These no longer have the certificate/expiry issues.

Tetsujin
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0

I encountered the same issue when performing a clean install on a new hard-drive. Most likely it was caused by disconnecting the battery in order to safely install the hard-drive. After setting the date the install was successful.

Cezar
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Here's what I went through. As long as I erased my Mac and "bootable usb El Capitan install drive" installation process complained with verification problem I decided to reinstall "Yosemite" using the built-in recovery disk, then I downloaded installer for "El Capitan" from "App Store". It was not possible to install through the "bootable usb drive" again, so I updated to El Capitan, oddly worked. And finally I erased my Mac and repeated reinstallation for "El Capitan".

presscorp
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