It may also be worth switching from a Wi-Fi connection to an Ethernet cable, to ensure your internet connection is as reliable as possible. If you're running low, open up the Apple menu, click 'About this Mac' then go to Storage > Manage and free up some disk space there. To make sure you do, open up the Apple menu and click on 'About This Mac.' Select 'Storage' then check to make sure you have enough space on your hard drive. Typically, a macOS download fails if you do not have enough storage space available on your Mac. If it has a green dot, then there's no issue, but other colors suggest there's a problem with Apple delivering the update.Īs you can see from the screenshot above, there had been issues with the software update at the time of writing, which have since been resolved.Īnother reason could be that you simply do not have enough space on your computer. There should be a section labelled 'macOS Software Update'. You can also check the live status of the Apple Server to make sure everything is alright on Apple's end. If you think this is the case, try again later on a non-peak time to see if the download works then. It may be because a lot of people are trying to download macOS Big Sur at the same time.

There are a few reasons why you may encounter this issue. That content can’t be downloaded at this time. Installation requires downloading important content. A few get the following error message: “Installation of macOS could not continue. Others, on the other hand, are seeing 'The network connection was lost' error messages when they try to download macOS Big Sur. One common macOS Big Sur problem that people have encountered is that macOS 11 fails to download, with some users seeing an error message that says 'Installation failed.'

(Image credit: Shutterstock) How to fix macOS Big Sur download problems

The macOS 11 failing to download is one of the most common macOS Big Sur problems people encounter.

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