Unmount and disconnect the drive, and connect it to the second machine on which you want to perform the upgrade. To avoid having to download the installer again, you need to save the package before you execute it, so, after downloading it to your first Mac, attach an external hard drive and copy it from your applications folder. The installer mounts this as a virtual drive and, once the installation completes, deletes it and self-destructs, freeing up space on your drive, but giving you no chance of using the same installer on a second machine. The installer is a standard application package inside of which the company has bundled a full disk image. Don't install right awayĪs we don't want to download the installer for each of our Macs, we need to take care of our initial download.

Clicking the 'install' button will download another copy to each of those machines. So, if you've already paid to install Lion on one machine, it'll appear in the App Store purchases tab on each of your other Macs. Browse the categories or use the search box to find the app you're after, and, with a single click, it'll be downloaded, installed and ready to use.īetter yet, you can download any apps you've bought to as many other Macs as you own, as long as they're all logged in through a single Apple ID. OS X's built-in Mac App Store has quickly established itself as the easiest, fastest way to buy software for your Mac.

What should you do then if you can neither travel nor afford the time or bandwidth hit involved in downloading Lion more than once? App Store shopping It's a neat idea, but not if you have to make several journeys to update more than one machine, or if your Mac is an iMac, Mac mini or Mac Pro, which aren't nearly so easy to use away from base.

Moreover, if you're on a capped account with a 20GB limit, you only need download Lion to three Macs and you've already consumed more than half of your monthly allowance.Īpple suggests that those who can't, or would rather not, download the installer at home visit an Apple Store and download it there using the free, open Wi-Fi network. Those users who have a fast, all-you-can-eat broadband deal probably won't think twice before clicking the download button, but not everyone is so lucky. The Lion installer is a 4GB download, which is roughly the same size as a high-definition movie. Apple's decision to offer OS X Lion as download-only software, at least initially, has been well publicised, but that won't stop it causing headaches for some users.

Os x lion download