IOS – iOS updates in El Capitan located on Mac

iositunesmacmacossoftware-update

Someone posted this question before giving the following location as the directory

 ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates

I am downloading the latest version right now and it is NOT in this directory. I've tried a system wide search for the .ipsw extention and checked to make sure it wasn't hidden, nothing has worked. Does anyone know where the files are actually being stored? All software and OS are up to date as of 12-15-15..

Best Answer

The file should be in ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates not /Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates

The first is your personal User Library, the second is the System Library.
The tilde ~ sign is an abbreviation recognised by the System meaning Boot Drive/Users/Your Name/ & saves having to know the names of the boot drive & current user.
It's kind of the Mac equivalent of using %appdata% in Windows to find the current user's Roaming folder - an environment variable.

By default ~/Library is hidden, so delving down the file hierarchy manually you won't find it.

You can get to ~/Library from the Finder > Go menu if you hold Opt ⌥ whilst selecting the folder, but if you have a specific destination, I find it easier to Go directly there…

  • In Finder, Cmd ⌘ N for New window
  • Cmd ⌘ Shift ⇧ G for Go…
  • Copy/paste ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone Software Updates including the tilde ~ & hit Enter ⌅
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