Fix slow OS X El Capitan / macOS Sierra download speed

A lot of people, including us, have been getting really slow download speeds on the OS X El Capitan, or macOS Sierra, download. Chances are, the servers nearest to you are being seriously hammered, hence the slow download.

An easy fix to this is to change your DNS to either use OpenDNS or a free DNS from the land down under (Australia)

Go to System Preferences > Network > Advanced > DNS remove any existing DNS entries and add either of the following:

Pause your download, give it a minute and then restart it.

Bandwidth consumption jumped to almost completely consume the connection we had immediately.

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  • Anton Karandeev

    Dear god thank you so much! There’re advices to change the DNS server all over the internet, but this is the first one that actually worked for me.

  • MrRogerius

    This one did the trick! Dropped my download time from 2 days to 1 hour. Thank you!

  • Ioachim Viju

    Hey man, thanks you, dropped from 1day and 5h to 43 min.

  • apparently the European DNS Server would eventually return a EU download-site. That could be the reason.
    It is way faster for me now… Thank you

  • Krollb

    Oh dude, this is working great, from 2 days to 1 hour 30 min. Thank you so much.

  • Eric Lindberg

    Thank you so much! This worked like a charm. Appreciate it!

  • Antonino Malgioglio

    thank you so much! from 1 day to an hour with the first DNS!!!

  • Jonathan Livingston

    This is the answer, finally! Been waiting for almost a week to find the proper DNS. Thank you!

  • zaniac911

    I just reformatted my drive, so I don’t have Preferences to go to. Any other suggestions?

    • Imad

      Try adding the DNS entries to the dhcp area on your router so your computer automatically fetches them when it connects to the network

      • zaniac911

        It was a fresh install on a newly-formatted drive. Those components were not available for edit. Managed to finish in less than 30 hours. 🙁

  • zaniac911

    Meanwhile, Apple still says this problem doesn’t exist.

  • Micah Stackhouse

    Don’t forget to click ‘Apply’. Works great. I added both DNS and speed went from 1 day to 30 min.

  • dontmindme777

    (Update for July 2016) Thank you, the OpenDNS above worked for me. (208.67.222.222) The other one must’ve borked after being hammered from being spread on Reddit and everywhere else.

  • Cdan Je

    sorry but my download speed still slow as usual.its so stressful..i am using macbook pro mid 2010..i keep changing my dns and still this happen..i already check my download speed at speedtest and its 20mb per sec..so please help me solving thiss :,(

    • Imad
      • Cdan Je

        i had try it out but its still slow..i am from malaysia and i just using dns locate at malaysia and still it slow..would u prefer to me which country dns should i use

        • Imad

          The DNS entries I shared were from Australia, I’d recommend you search for DNS servers for different countries, that might help you. downloading the update via a VPN might also help