OS X El Capitan, also referred to as macOS El Capitan, is the 12th major release of the Mac operating system. It was the final version of the OS X series to support aluminum Macs and Xserve. Although introduced in 2015, some of you may still need to run El Capitan on a virtual machine.
If that's you, you'll need the OS X El Capitan ISO file, which is a disk image file that contains the operating system OS X El Capitan.
| How to download El Capitan ISO | Safety | Bootable or Not | Supported Platform | Extra features |
| With iBoysoft DiskGeeker | Safe | Bootable | Mac | - Create a bootable El Capitan USB installer - Download other macOS DMG files |
| Directly from the internet | Not sure | Not sure | Mac & Windows | None |
How to download and create a 10.11.6 El Capitan ISO safely?
The best way to obtain the El Capitan 10.11.6 ISO file is from iBoysoft DiskGeeker for Mac. It has a library of macOS installers available for download (macOS 26 Tahoe ~ Mac OS X Snow Leopard), including the newest version of OS X El Capitan. This tool also supports making bootable USB installers for El Capitan and other versions.
Here's how to download the El Capitan bootable DMG file:
Step 1: Free download and open iBoysoft DiskGeeker for Mac.
Step 2: Click Download Image in the bottom-left corner.
Step 3: Scroll down and tick the box next to OS X 10.11 El Capitan.
Step 4: Click Download Image.
Once the El Capitan DMG file is downloaded, you can easily convert it into a bootable ISO file. Open Terminal from the Applications > Utilities folder, then run the following commands in Terminal:
First, copy and paste the command below after replacing dmg_file_path with the actual file path of the DMG file in Terminal and hit Enter. To get the file path, simply drag and drop the DMG file into Terminal.
hdiutil convert dmg_file_path -format UDTO -o ~/Desktop/El\ Capitan.cdr
This command converts a specified .dmg file into a .cdr file using the Universal Disk Image Format and saves it to the Desktop with the name "El Capitan.cdr".
Next, rename the CDR file to ISO.
mv ~/Desktop/El\ Capitan.cdr ~/Desktop/El\ Capitan.iso
Now, you have the El Capitan ISO file on your desktop.
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How to download El Capitan ISO directly on Mac or Windows?
If you prefer to download the El Capitan ISO file from the internet or on a Windows PC for VirtualBox or VMware, you can find the resources below. These links can be downloaded from a Mac or a Windows PC.
El Capitan ISO download for VirtualBox or VMware (archive.org, 7.1G)
El Capitan ISO image download (mediafire.com)
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