I ran iTunes, confirmed that I was logged out there. The Software Update feature had no El Capitan either. On the Snow Leopard computer, the App Store offered only macOS Sierra, not El Capitan. The Snow Leopard wanted to update my App Store, so I did this. I dug out and booted up my old computer, which runs Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. And, I had macOS Sierra in my app store purchase history. This finished up as an application, /Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app. įrom the app store, I downloaded macOS 10.12 Sierra. My method was a variation on Pete's answer as edited from. I just installed Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan on a Mac with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite, despite the app store offering me only macOS 10.12 Sierra. And finally have access to it via your purchases tab in your account from your newer Mac. So one idea left would be to get an older Mac of a friend. There isn't a way for you to get El Capitan. Since your Mac cannot run Snow Leopard either, To install is for those with Macs that cannot run Sierra or still have If you Mac is compatible with Sierra, then you cannot install ElĬapitan unless you had previously downloaded it. Update2: Here is what someone says on upgrading from Yosemite to El Capitan in an Apple discussion thread: Where it is provided under the words 'get El Capitan from the App Store' Just reloading the page with Cmd+ R did not have the same success rate as clicking into the URL-bar and resubmit the request by hitting Return.

So it seems a matter of retrying until success. Update: After that I tried the link a few more times by directly clicking or by copy paste it into the URL-bar. Anyway today the link lead me correctly to the El Capitan download in the App Store. Maybe it was a server issue on Apples side or maybe it helped already having opened the App Store. I tried the link a few times but my App Store did not open.

The following link, opened in Safari, should trigger the App Store to show the El Capitan download even if it is not already in the purchases list.

Update mac os x el capitan to sierra