It is geared to provide El Capitan for people that need to meet El Capitan requirements for High Sierra because they are on Snow Leopard or Lion. Take a closer look at the Apple Support info in the link. It still would not let me download El Capitan. I did not currently have Yosemite on a Mac, so I connect a External drive that had a basic installation of Yosemite (10.10.5) to a 2011 MBP that I was not using. If you have not previously 'Purchased' (Downloaded) El Capitan, then you may have to get it from a nearby friend or buy a El Capitan (10.11.6) USB installer from eBay.ĮDIT: Can you use Sierra (10.12.6) instead?Ĭlick to expand.It would really help if you told us what Mac model you have? After you create the USB installer successfully then you can delete the 'Install OS X El Capitan' installer app from the Applications folder. Now you are ready to create a El Capitan USB Installer. I would recommend saving the Installer app somewhere safe on another drive and leave the original installer app in the Application folder for creating the USB installer drive. That will leave you with a 'Install OS X El Capitan' installer app (about 6 GB) in the Applications folder.

As it launches Quit the installer at the first question.

When the installer is downloaded it will automatically launch. I could download 10.11 if I used the App Store 'Purchased' tab (I had previously downloaded El Capitan):Ĭlick continue and it will download the El Capitan installer. I just used the above links while using Sierra and got the same message: Click to expand.You are getting that message because you are using one of these links with a newer OS:

Install os x el capitan from usb