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My mom's iMac is having issues (it's booting to the "prohibited" circle with a slash), and needs the OS reinstalled. She'd been running El Capitan, and I'd like to reinstall the same since she has some apps that could be incompatible with a newer OS.

Her rural internet is abysmal (think dial-up speeds) and there is no way she'll finish a full download of an OS from her home, so I am intending to create a bootable install disk for her. But when I try to download the El Capitan installer it does not allow me to even begin the download since my computers are all 2018 systems running High Sierra.

Is there any way to download a copy of El Capitan from a High Sierra Mac?

candez
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  • Did you ever download OS X 10.11 in the past? If yes, then you should be able to download it from the Purchased button on the Toolbar of the App Store in macOS High Sierra. – user3439894 Jul 07 '19 at 02:46
  • Just tried that, but it says "This version of OS X 10.11 cannot be installed on this computer" and halts the download. – candez Jul 07 '19 at 04:49
  • I think I'm going to end up pushing her to Sierra, since I can at least download that from the App Store still. If I'm unable to fix it for her before Monday she's going to the Apple store and would more than likely get upgraded to Mojave, anyway. – candez Jul 07 '19 at 05:04
  • I'm running macOS High Sierra and I just clicked the download button for OS X El Capitan in Purchased on the App Store and it's downloading just fine! – user3439894 Jul 07 '19 at 05:28
  • BTW The only reason I can think of why it's able to download on my Mac, is that it would support running it, where your's would not because its newer hardware than that version of OS X. – user3439894 Jul 07 '19 at 05:53
  • @user3439894 That's interesting. You're right, it must be the hardware. I would break out my 2013 Mac and try it, but it is out of service at the moment. – candez Jul 07 '19 at 07:40

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