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I'm still running Mac OS 10.11 El Capitan. I've decided to upgrade, but I don't want to lose 32-bit support, so Catalina is not an option for me.

I found this official Apple page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210190

However, the link on that page to download Mojave (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/macos-mojave/id1398502828?ls=1&mt=12) doesn't work for me. (I have iTunes 12.5.1.21.) It only pops up a message from iTunes:

Item Not Available

The item you've requested is not currently available in the U.S. store.

How can I upgrade to Mojave?

bmike
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Wildcard
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  • I have a sneaky feeling you need to go via High Sierra before Mojave, for the firmware update & APFS prep. [but I can't confirm this for sure, nothing to test on any more] Also see https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/309399/how-can-i-download-an-older-version-of-os-x-macos which is getting a bit out of date now, but still might have some useful info. – Tetsujin Sep 19 '20 at 08:23
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    @Tetsujin that comment is so good, I’m editing it into both my answers on this. – bmike Sep 19 '20 at 10:32
  • @bmike - thanks for the edit on that - I'm losing track of it a bit these days as the newest Mac here is stuck at Mojave. – Tetsujin Sep 19 '20 at 10:53
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    We had thousands of Mac that could go to Mojave and didn’t (for reasons) at work so we’ve been doing this process over and over and over. I feel like I know every single thing that can go wrong updating from 10.9/10/11/12 to Mojave or whatever the latest aging hardware can do. With COVID we are squeezing life out of every machine we have. It would have been easier if people had backups and just upgraded each year. We have many that may never go to Catalina as well @Tetsujin – bmike Sep 19 '20 at 10:57
  • @Tetsujin nope, direct upgrade worked perfectly. – Wildcard Sep 19 '20 at 16:11
  • OK, good to know. – Tetsujin Sep 19 '20 at 16:14

1 Answers1

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Open the link in Safari so that it finds the Mac App Store to open the application.

If you have failures after getting the Mac App Store to receive the link or the installer is too small or doesn’t work, this post is amazing and can help with different issues specific to machines and OS versions.

bmike
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  • The AppStore reports this as being a 6.1 GB download. Is that the entire OS, or is this an installer app that downloads the actual OS binaries from another location? – Seamus Sep 19 '20 at 00:53
  • At 6.1 GB it is the entire OS – lhf Sep 19 '20 at 00:59
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    The entire OS does call out to the internet before installing for any late changes, firmware patches for the specific hardware it’s running on, but it’s a fully functioning OS that can install offline, @Seamus – bmike Sep 19 '20 at 01:29
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    Boom, that does it! Thanks! Interesting because just choosing "Mac App Store" for the "open link with" from Firefox didn't work at all, but this approach works. – Wildcard Sep 19 '20 at 02:20
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    Be sure to check the size of the installer when you download it to make sure it is the 6GB size. Apple has given me installer apps instead of full OS installers. But it was clear that it had not downloaded 5-6GB in the time it took to finish downloading from the App Store. – TJ Luoma Sep 19 '20 at 03:28
  • Apparently this doesn't work for everyone... I have a valid Apple store account, and have d/l other items. However, in this case, attempting a download with the URL provided here in Safari launches the AppStore - which lists macos Mojave, and displays a Get button. However, once the Get button is clicked in the App Store, I am informed The requested version of macos is not available. Why is that? – Seamus Sep 19 '20 at 05:18
  • @Seamus I’ve never seen this method fail short of the usual reasons, CDN is borked, store is busy or overloaded due to a major OS release. Hit me up if you post a new question. As TJ mentioned, the process isn’t foolproof - many people had a process error (iTunes opened the link instead of App Store) and not a App Store download failure. I suspect your process is correct and there is a specific error. Sometimes you don’t get a good download (or Apple messes up the upload) and the validity check doesn’t catch it. – bmike Sep 19 '20 at 10:23
  • Would downloading Mojave to a Catalina system work - or does Apple check to see if your OS is older than the one you're trying to download? – Seamus Sep 19 '20 at 10:41
  • @Seamus almost always - see https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/392442/issue-downgrading-macos-catalina-to-mojave-using-bootable-install – bmike Sep 19 '20 at 11:58
  • OK - I knew that I couldn't install it, I just wanted to have a copy as a backup for another older computer on which I've installed Linux. I'll have to find another way 'round I suppose - thanks! – Seamus Sep 19 '20 at 19:57
  • It works for me to download always @Seamus - I use the installers to install in VMWare so when Big Sur and Catalina run on the Mac, I can still run and test older OS like Mojave and High Sierra on new hardware that don’t have driver support. – bmike Sep 19 '20 at 20:00
  • Well then - I am mystified! – Seamus Sep 19 '20 at 20:01