How to stop macOS beta updates from appearing on your Mac. How to turn off automatic macOS updates How to turn off mac os update reminders

You're probably a little annoyed by the notifications that pop up in the upper right corner of the screen when a new software update is released. Installing updates would be useful in most cases, but for certain reasons we would like to skip some of them. In addition, if the release of the update caught you during an emergency at work, and you have absolutely no time to install it at the moment, regularly pop-up messages can be distracting and irritating. In this material we will tell you about a remedy that will help you protect your nerve cells, and we are not talking about Novopassit or Persen.

Not all users know that the software update notification feature introduced in OS X 10.8 can be easily disabled. To do this, you should perform a number of fairly simple manipulations that will not take much of your time and effort.


To turn off notifications about the availability of new updates, you need to launch your Mac from the dock or and find the “Updates” tab. After this, move the mouse cursor over the description of the desired update and call the context menu with a right click or CTRL + left click. A menu should appear with one option to select “Hide Update”. Click it and notifications will no longer bother you until the next update is released.


If at some point you realize that you’ve missed the beautiful white tiles in the corner of the screen, you can always return notifications about updates. To do this, you need to go to the same Mac App Store and select “Show all software updates” in the top “Store” menu. After this, the usual messages will return.

Some MacBook Air and MacBook Pro users report that their laptops have noticeably lower battery life after upgrading from OS X Yosemite to El Capitan. People use laptops for completely different purposes, so not everyone noticed the changes after the update. But to prevent this situation from causing you sudden questions in the future, MacDigger offers five simple tips that will help extend the operating time of your MacBook running the latest versions of OS X.

Turn off visual effects

Transparency and other effects in OS X El Capitan and Yosemite require additional system resources and affect the battery life of your MacBook. To disable them, do the following:

  1. From the  (Apple) menu, go to System Properties and select Accessibility.
  2. In the Monitor section, check Reduce transparency (the Increase contrast option disables the transparency effect).

Turn off automatic updates

This feature is enabled by default, but without it your laptop will run longer offline. OS X has several types of automatic updates. To save battery, you can safely disable operating system and application updates. You can leave automatic installation of system files and downloads of security updates turned on.

  1. Go to System Properties -> App Store.
  2. Disable downloading updates in the background.
  3. Disable installation of application updates.
  4. Disable installing OS X updates.

After completing these steps, be sure to manually check for updates to your system and applications.

Disable unused geolocation features

Many apps collect user location data. But if you do not use this functionality of the program, then it is better to disable it, thereby extending the operating time of the MacBook on a single charge.

  1. In system properties, go to the Security and Privacy section and open the Privacy tab.
  2. In the list on the left, select the Location Services section.
  3. Disable the location feature by unchecking the box next to those applications in which this feature is not relevant to you.
  4. Scroll down to System Services and click More details. Check your geolocation settings in this section.

The effect of disabling this option on a Mac is not as noticeable as on an iPhone, but it still helps extend the laptop's battery life.

Reduce screen brightness

Dimming the brightness is one of the basic actions that helps save battery power on any laptop or mobile device. You can reduce the brightness level in OS X El Capitan and Yosemite using the buttons on the keyboard: by default, these are the F1 and F2 keys.

Monitor your energy impact in System Monitoring

System monitoring allows you to accurately determine which applications consume the most computer resources, including CPU, hard drive, RAM, and so on.

  1. Press Command+Space to bring up Spotlight. Type System Monitor in the search bar and launch the application by pressing the Return button.
  2. Go to the Energy tab.
  3. Sort the list of applications by Energy Impact value to see the most power-hungry software.

The first applications in the sorted list consume the most system resources and drain the most battery power. Close unused windows and applications. If you wish, you can simply restart your Mac and then launch the most necessary programs.

It is worth noting that some MacBook owners also noted an increase in the duration of their laptops after switching from OS X Yosemite to El Capitan. From this we can conclude that the rate of battery consumption in the vast majority of cases is individual.

System updates released by Apple always fix various shortcomings in the operating system. Therefore, it is necessary to update every time a new software version is released. OS X Mountain Lion comes with a constant system update reminder enabled by default, which can sometimes be very annoying when you're on a Mac. Of course, the ideal option is to update, but what if you don’t have time for that?!

1) Turn off the reminder for a few minutes.

Banner - it is located in the upper right corner. If it bothers you, then you just need to move the mouse cursor over the banner from left to right. This measure is temporary, because after a few minutes it will appear again. This function is very convenient to use if you do not have time to update at the moment, but you plan to do it later, during the day.

2) Turn off the reminder for one day.

To do this, you need to go to the Notification Center, move up the scroll bar and turn off the display of reminders and banners. Reminders will stop bothering you exactly one day.

3) Turn off updates from the Mac App Store

Open the Mac App Store and select Updates. A list of updates will appear in front of you.

Right-click on the application that you do not want to update in the Mac App Store and select Hide update.

To return the program to the update window, simply click on the Store menu -> Show all software updates...

4) Shutdown from system settings.

Go to System Settings -> Software Update and uncheck Automatically check for updates.

We have considered all valid options. But it should be taken into account that it is necessary to update constantly, because with new updates the software is constantly improved, new, useful functions appear, and stability improves. So don't forget to update.

Many Apple technology users are faced with the problem of their devices slowing down over time. And if the problem in iOS is officially confirmed, then with Apple computers not everything is so simple.

Let's see if this problem exists and disable automatic download of macOS High Sierra.

Should I disable updates?

There is no evidence yet that Apple is intentionally slowing down Macs over time. But the problem lies elsewhere. Each new macOS introduces more and more new features that require a lot of resources. Therefore, if you have an old computer, it is better to refrain from installing the update. The biggest thing to be wary of is MacBook and iMac users that use an HDD and have less than 4GB of RAM installed. You can look at the features of the new OS at the link: https://www.apple.com/ru/macos/high-sierra/

Disable macOS High Sierra update

To disable automatic download of macOS High Sierra update, you need to follow 3 simple steps:

  1. Open System Preferences. You can do this by clicking on the apple icon in the upper left corner and selecting the appropriate item. The settings icon is also available in the Dock panel.
  2. Launch App Store Settings.

  3. Uncheck the “Automatically check for updates” checkbox. If the system does not allow you to do this, then you should remove the lock. To do this, click on the lock icon at the bottom of the window and enter the administrator password.

These operations will turn off notifications about available updates and will not automatically download macOS in the background.

An alternative way to disable updates is the following:


macOS High Sierra update won't download

In addition to manually disabling updates, macOS has its own system boot criterion.

  • The update will not download if your computer has less than 5 GB of free space. That's how much macOS High Sierra weighs. To check your device memory, click on the apple icon in the upper left corner and open “ About this Mac“. Next, select the “ Storage

  • Although Apple is famous for supporting older devices, not all computers are compatible with macOS High Sierra. You can check the relevance of your device using the picture attached below.

  • There is no active Internet connection. Everything is logical here: there is no network connection - the update will not be downloaded. You can check your Wi-Fi status in the top bar of macOS. If you have a wired connection, then pay attention to the LAN port.

Removing the macOS High Sierra download

If the macOS update is downloaded, this does not mean that it will install itself. This is simply impossible without the user's consent. To delete a downloaded system (after all, it weighs a lot), you need to go to Finder and select “ Programs“.

The software update process in OS X Mountain Lion is fairly straightforward, but the reminders that new versions of apps are available can sometimes be annoying. That is why we decided to tell you how, with the help of some system settings, this can be almost completely corrected.

Temporary solution - swipe on notification

The simplest and most common solution to this problem is a simple swipe on the notification. This method can be very popular among users who do not want to “dig” into the system settings.

The disadvantage of this solution is that this action will have to be repeated several times a day.

Workaround: Disable Notification Center

You can also turn off notification center to stop pop-up reminders for one day. You can do this by clicking on the notification center icon in the upper right corner of the screen while holding down the Option key.

You can turn off reminders in the notification center itself by simply swiping.

The only disadvantage of this method is that it will have to be repeated every day until updates are installed. In addition, this method will also turn off absolutely all other notifications.

The optimal solution is to hide updates

If you don't want to install any of the updates for OS X Mountain Lion apps, hiding the update in a special section of the Mac App Store may be the ideal solution.

To hide an individual update, just open the Mac App Store, then go to the tab "Updates", right-click on update and select "Hide update".

The optimal solution is to disable automatic checking for updates

We would like to note that we recommend this method only for those users who do not want to see notifications even about important updates. When using it, do not forget that Apple periodically releases important system updates that allow you to close some serious OS X vulnerabilities.

Who still wants to use this method, you need to open the OS X Mountain Lion system settings, then go to the “Software Update” tab and uncheck the “Automatically check for updates” checkbox. After activating this method, it is advisable to manually check for updates once a week.

Our advice is to install the update