El Capitan Cannot Be Verified

  • I am trying to upgrade an older iMac (2008) from OS 10.6.8 to El Capitan for a disabled client who really needs to use a Mac instead of a PC!
  • EveryMac says it can handle El Capitan if I upgrade RAM. It has 4GB now.
  • I have an Installer file from my own Mac (always keep them when I upgrade). I made a bootable flash installer that mounts and seems to have the proper files, but it won't show up on either Mac on restart holding option key; nor in the Startup Disk list. So, I figured writing to the flash drive must have failed.
  • I partitioned an external hard drive and redid this:

    'sudo /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/MyVolume --applicationpath /Applications/Install OS X El Capitan.app'

  • It seems to work (again) in Finder AND it shows up as a boot option on restart (holding option key), but when I select Install OS X I get an error that the installer cannot be verified. I can't get it to work.
  • So, I figured my installer must have gone bad, even though I successfully upgraded my own Mac with it, and have since upgraded mine to Sierra.
  • Using the App Store I can get to El Capitan, but it will not allow me to download it on my Mac because the system is too new, and I don't want to download it to the old Mac because I want to use an external drive to do a clean install; not an upgrade on the old one.
  • Any advice?

IMAC (RETINA 5K, 27-INCH, LATE 2015), macOS Sierra (10.12.3)

Posted on Feb 28, 2017 9:53 PM

Apr 01, 2016 “This copy of the Install OS X Mavericks application can’t be verified. It may have been corrupted or tampered with during downloading” The reason why this insane message is happening is because as of February 2016, the security certificates that validate these Mac OS X installs seems to have expired. 3200 El Capitan Ave, Merced, CA 95340 is a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1,460 sqft single-family home built in 1960. This property is currently available for sale and was listed by CRMLS on Jul 5, 2021. The asking price for 3200 El Capitan Ave is $360,000. The MLS # for this home is MLS# MC21145834.

El Capitan Cannot Be Verified As A

  1. Cancel out to the installation (If you are still on your bootable image of El Captain). Go to Utilities - Terminal. If your date is correct, then proceed to the next section below. If it’s not correct, continue with these steps. Set the current date and time.
  2. Replaced the hard drive on an old 2007 iMac. Previously had this machine running 10.11, with no issues. Downloaded the El Capitan installer from the webpage, and used the createinstallmedia command to make a bootable USB drive. Everything seems to proceed normally, until 'This copy of OS X El Capitan can't be verified.

One of the major changes in the macOS Sierra Public Beta isn’t an obvious one, and you may not encounter it until you try to install an app that you didn’t buy from the App Store.

In the Sierra Public Beta, Apple has changed the settings for running downloaded apps. If you really need to run that app and can’t figure out how, it can be frustrating. The settings are found in the General tab of the Security & Privacy system preference.

Capitan

Note: This article was written for people using the Sierra Public Beta. When Apple released the final version of Sierra, it reverted the settings back to the way it works in El Capitan.

First, how it works in El Capitan

To understand the changes, let’s look at what was offered before Sierra. Previously (or currently, if you’re not running Sierra), in El Capitan. the setting looked like this.

“Allow apps downloaded from” has three settings:

Online
  • Mac App Store: The Mac will only run apps downloaded from the Mac App Store.
  • Mac App Store and identified developers: When you try to open a new app and it’s not on the list of identified developers that’s saved within the operating system, the Mac tells you it can’t open it. To open the app, you have to go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy, and click the Open Anyway button that appears in the General tab.
  • Anywhere: You’ll see a notification that says the new app you want to open was downloaded from the internet, and you need to confirm that you want to open it.

El Capitan Can't Be Verified

The change in the macOS Sierra Public Beta

The major change is that Apple removed the Anywhere setting. If you had this setting selected in El Capitan and you’ve upgraded to the Sierra beta, you won’t be able to open downloaded apps like you’re used to.

If you want to open an app that you didn’t buy in the Mac App Store and instead downloaded it from a developer on the internet, there are two way for opening the app.

The quick way to open an unidentified, downloaded app in the Sierra beta

  1. After you download the app and move it to your Applications folder, right-click on it and select Open.
  2. After you select Open, you will see a warning that’s similar to the one below. Click OK to open the app.Sierra adds the developer to its internal list of identified developers so you can open other apps from the same developer.

The long way to open an unidentified, downloaded app in the Sierra beta

El Capitan Cannot Be Verified Full

  1. After you download the app and move it to your Applications folder, launch it. You will see a warning like this one:Click OK. This does not open the app. It simply returns you to the Finder.
  2. Go to Apple menu > System Preferences, and then click on the Security & Privacy icon.
  3. Under the General tab, look in the setting for “Allow apps downloaded from” and you should see that the app you tried to open was noticed by the operating system. Click the Open Anyway button to open that new app.Sierra will then note the developer and add it to its internal list of identified developers. If you download a different app from the same developer, Sierra will look for the developer on the list and if it sees the developer, the new app will open.