Since we’ll be performing a clean install, the hard drive(s) will be erased and formatted, so again, make sure you have a backup of all of your precious data! Creating a Bootable USB Be sure to check our list of the five best free backup apps for your Mac. The best apps to do this include SuperDuper and Carbon Copy Cloner, or obviously Apple’s built-in Time Machine. While the chances of anything going wrong are slim, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. We always recommend you have a backup of all your data, particularly when you’re about to update to a new operating system. You’ll also need to download DiskMaker X, which can be found on their official website. OS X 10.11 El Capitan can be downloaded from the Mac App Store. MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)Īll you need to perform the installation is a spare 8GB or larger USB thumb drive, an external drive to back up all your data to (if you have any), and a copy of OS X 10.11 El Capitan.MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later).The full list of supported devices is as follows:

If your Mac is already running OS X Yosemite, then you’re good to go. You first need to make sure that your Mac supports OS X El Capitan. We’ll be showing you how to perform a clean install of OS X 10.11 El Capitan (the easy way) in this guide. It gets rid of the annoying waste from third-party apps and removes junk files, as well as the annoying quirks. You can either install El Capitan over your current version of OS X, not disrupting your programs/data, or you can perform a clean install.Ī clean install will offer you significant benefits over running the automatic upgrade procedure, as it gives your Mac a complete new fresh state. So, if your Mac is compatible (more on that later), you’ll want to get El Capitan up and running on your Mac. El Capitan offers many improvements and refinements to the OS X experience, such as better window management, enhanced Spotlight search, subtle improvements to system performance and more.

How to install os x el capitan on pc