Mac OSes have been evolving since the first mac system’s onset. Apple has been delivering OS updates regularly to make the OS formidable and stand out in the tech industry. With Mac being one of the majorly used computer systems in the world, grossing over 100 million users worldwide, the OS and the machine have to be of a good standard. Unlike other computer OS developers, Apple develops and produces both the hardware and software, making it unique and premium.

The hardware is mostly built by customizing hardware from other tech manufacturers like AMD, Nvidia and much more and integrating it natively to make the system unique and powerful. As mentioned previously, Apple makes its OS frequent and makes sure users are provided with the best features. So, here in this article, we will elaborate discuss one of the breakthrough OS developed by Apple to run Mac Computers
Mac OS El Capital 10. 11 is the 12 the major OS released by Apple that came in the year 2015. The OS is named after a popular rock formation located in Yosemite National Park. The OS packed in many improvement features improving the overall performance of the OS. apart from feature improvements, there was no significant improvement in the user interface. The overall improvement brought in by the OS enhances the already existing Mac OS version Mac OS X Yosemite.
With the Mac OS X El Capital, Apple focussed on two key areas namely user experience and performance making the OS formidable. The OS features many performance improvements like multitasking, window management and spotlight search which we will discuss in the latter part of this article.
OS X El Capital follows the footsteps of Mac OS X Yosemite in terms of the user interface, but some changes have been done like a new font(San Fransisco) has been introduced systemwide, improved Mission Control features, and a new split-screen view feature that is similar to the iOS 9’s multitasking feature on iPad. So, follow along and see what the OS has to offer.
Features Brought in by Mac OS X El Capital
Features of an OS are what makes it different from other OSes and learning about the features of an OS will improve the efficiency of the user when operating the OS. Mac OS is frequently updated and the major version brings in major changes to the OS. Also, Apple makes it mandatory for users to upgrade to the latest version, to provide the best features that are competitive with other OS manufacturers and satisfy users.
So, listed below are some of the cool features that were integrated into the Mac OS X E Capital. Follow along and see what the OS is capable of and how well it is built.
Spotlight
Spotlight is a search feature introduced to Mac in 2005 and since then this tool has been providing users with the ability to search stuff much faster. With Mac OS X El Capital’s improved spotlight feature, users can search for various things with ease and get relevant search results with the improved indexing features. With the spotlight in El Capital, you can search for documents you used yesterday by just searching for documents from yesterday and boom the documents that you used or created will appear in the search results. With the improved spotlight tool, you can catch up with live sports, weather, directions on the map and much more.

Improvements to Mailing Systems
Emailing is made easy and efficient on Mac OS El Caption alerting you to contact details or event times in the body of my messages. With just a few clicks, you can add new people to Contacts, update an old contact’s information and add new events to the Calendar is a snap. The new mail app supports a full-screen mailing feature allowing you to access emails and efficiently go through them with ease. You can also compose emails with a new compose window, that is full-screened, so you get a better view of what you write and there is no need for squinting your eyes.
New Email Gestures
The mailing app has been updated with gestures that can make managing emails easier. Just use two fingers on the trackpad and swipe the email left to delete it by clicking on the delete button that shows up.
Improved Maps
Maps in El Capital have been improved and with the new maps, you can easily access transit options and directions in select cities.
Mission Control
With the Mission Control feature on the El Capital OS, you can manage windows easily. With this feature, you can view all the open apps and organize them orderly. You can optimize the windows with the help of the improved Mission Control features.
Split View
With the split-view feature, you can run two applications side-by-side by making the apps run on half screen views. With this feature, you can better multi-task or view two different applications. You can use this feature to take notes from a website or do much more.
Improved Photos App
In El Capital, the photos app has been improved with new and enhanced features. You can now use third-party photo app tools natively on the photos app. With this, you don’t have to open up the third-party application but just use the photos app and edit with ease.
Two-Factor Authentication
Two-Factor Authentication replaces the two-step verification system and improves the security features. With the new verification system in place, Apple’s customer support team will be able to provide users with recovery features. With this feature, trusting devices becomes easier and you can access your account from another device that is not on the trusted list.
New Graphic Technology Metal
Apple has introduced a new graphic technology called the Metal El Caption OS. This provides users with enhanced graphics performance on the system. The feature is said to enhance the performance of graphics by 40% which is a huge improvement.
Improvements with Safari
Safari being a browser developed and supported by Apple, the application gets priority in every update and with El Caption, the app has got some cool improvements, you can pin frequently used websites to the browser tabs. The pinned websites will be updated frequently with changes that happen on the website. You can now watch videos on the web and watch the video on your Apple TV by just sharing the video and not the whole screen.
Improvements with Notes
Apple has focussed more on Notes and made the app more powerful by adding new features and improving the existing features. With the improved Notes app, you can add third-party content like URLs, PDFs, documents, and other files. You can use the share sheet option on safari and other supported applications to share content directly to notes instead of copying and pasting it to notes.
So before we get into learning the PC requirements to install and run Mac OS X El Capitan, let’s find out what exactly these DMG and ISO mean as it is pretty basic for Mac users to understand what these mean as the OS file you download will mostly be in these formats and having a basic idea is essential.
DMG File: Simply put, DMG File is an Apple Disk Image file used to save the image format of Mac OS. It is specific to Mac systems and can be used on Mac systems.
ISO File: ISO file is an image file that stores every single data of a file or software and can be used as a portable file. It was created to easily store image files on CD/DVDs and now that CDs and DVDs are not commonly used ISO files are used as it is and can be downloaded from the internet.
So both DMG file and ISO files are image files. They use different technologies to store files as image files. The DMG file is used in Mac computers but the ISO file format is a universal format supported across many OS platforms.
So, both the image files can be use on Mac systems and we use them to install Mac OS on a computer. ISO file is best suited to install Mac OS on a virtual machine and the DMG file is suited to install OS on Mac systems.
System Requirements to Run Mac OS X El Capitan
So, now that we have discussed about the ISO and DMG file format, we can move on to learning the PC requirements to install and run Mac OS X El Capitan.
Mac OSes are efficient systems that are built to run capable machines, so the OS requires a good amount of system requirements to run. Well, all Mac systems are built to run Mac OSew but with OS updates some old Mac machines do not support new updates.
Mac systems that are capable of running Mountain Lion, Mavericks, or Yosemite can run Mac OS X El Capitan with ease, so if you have a system that is running these OSes you can Install Mac OS X El Capitan. To make things a bit clear, here is the list of Mac systems that can run Mac OS X El Capitan.
- MacBook: Late 2008 or newer version.
- MacBook Air: Late 2008 or newer version.
- MacBook Pro: Mid 2007 or newer version.
- Mac Mini: Early 2009 or newer version.
- iMac: Mid 2007 or newer version.
- Mac Pro: Early 2008 or newer version.
- Xserve: Early 2009 version.

One of the major requirements you have to check is whether your Mac has 2 GB of RAM. If your system satisfies this, you can run Mac OS X El Capitan.
Hope the article was informative, we have discussed every major aspect that you need to know before installing the Mac OS X El Capitan OS on your Mac PC or virtual machine. With these simple download and install methods mentioned, you can easily download and install the Mac OS X El Capitan.
Installing Mac OS X El Capitan on Mac
Well, installing the OS is pretty easy. Since the OS is fairly old, you have to download the DMG file or ISO file of the OS from an authentic source.
- Once you have downloaded the image files on your system, create a bootable USB disk.
- Now, with the bootable disk, insert it into the system.
- Hold down the option key, and restart the system.
- Select the device that has the OS files.
- The system will start and the installer will run.
- Old OS will be erased and the new OS will be installed.
- Follow the process in the installation windows and successfully install the OS on your computer.
- Now the setup windows will open, here, you can set up the OS as you prefer. You can choose the options that you need and leave the rest to run a customized OS.
Installing Mac OS X El Capitan on a Virtual Machine
- For installing the OS on a virtual machine, first open the virtual machine that you currently use, and set up an environment to load and run the OS.
- Now, download the ISO file of the El Capitan OS on your computer and extract the ISO file.
- Now, open the virtual machine and when prompted to select the installation files, select the extracted ISO file.
- Now the installation will begin, follow the installation process and get running Mac OS X El Capitan on your PC.
With Mac being one of the most frequently updated OS, there have been several updates since OS X El Capitan and they are Mac OS X Mojave, OS X Sierra, OS X High Sierra, and OS X Catalina. So, if you are planning to upgrade your Mac OS, make sure you choose the best OS to stay updated and use the best features. You can Install a suitable Mac OS on your system but before doing so, check with the minimum system requirements to run the specific OS.
Hope the information provided above was helpful and informative, with these details discussed, you can proceed with installing the OS on your system with ease.