Skip to main content

Apple releases OS X Yosemite Public Beta

upload

Apple has started sending out OS X Yosemite builds for Beta Program, as announced yesterday. The build is being sent out to a million Beta Program members. Participants can get a redemption code from the site, to redeem in the Mac App Store.

Screen Shot 2014-07-24 at 11.18.16 AM

Apple has said that Apple will not update the Beta Program Yosemite builds as often as the developer seeds (which come out every two weeks, usually), but participants will be able to upgrade to the final public version of Yosemite seamlessly through the App Store, when it is released.  The seed released in the beta program is one build newer than the one released to developers on Monday.

Beta Program participants can leave feedback through the Feedback Assistant. Unfortunately, some of Yosemite’s tentpole features will not be available for evaluation as they require integration with iOS 8, which remains closed off to anyone but developers. Although the stability of seeds has been improving, a beta is a ‘beta’ for a reason and Beta Program members are not advised not to install it on their primary machine.

There are a few known issues with this build, that participants should be aware of.

Known Issues

Safari may hang when playing certain Netflix content.
iPhoto 9.5.1 and Aperture 3.5.1 are required on OS X Yosemite. Update to these versions from the Mac App Store.
When entering edit mode in iPhoto, a black screen may be displayed instead of the selected photo.
Photo Stream and iCloud Photo Sharing may not function properly when both iPhoto and Aperture are installed.
The shared purchase history page on the Mac App Store is disabled for Family Sharing accounts.
iCloud Drive may appear empty in the Finder after first time setup. Restart to resolve this problem.
AirDrop may not show nearby Macs.
Sending files to another Mac using AirDrop may not work.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. Taste_of_Apple - 10 years ago

    I’m curious to see how many people will take the plunge.

  2. fcoramirez - 10 years ago

    I’m enrolled but haven’t received any information from Apple. I guess I have to wait a bit longer or maybe there are more than a million members in the program. Either way, looking forward to my redemption code

    • Awar Meman (@mrmemanem) - 10 years ago

      I enrolled and haven’t gotten mine either, and its 12:30 where I am…

      • Just go onto the Yosemite beta page and sign in, then you will get the redemption code. I didn’t get an email, but did that and now I’m running it :)

      • sardonick - 10 years ago

        Did what Josh below mentioned and it worked for me. I never got the email, but am now running YoYo on my MBPro after manually going to the beta page.

  3. Michael Mort - 10 years ago

    I haven’t received my redemption code yet, and I signed up for Yosemite beta on the day of the keynote :/

    • Michael Mort - 10 years ago

      Okay I got the code to work in the app store and it’s downloading now, but when I was on the Beta site, it was in Chinese/Japanese/Korean…. I don’t know why….

      • Tobbish - 10 years ago

        I had this problem on my iMac too, at least with the Feedback Assistant. I haven’t checked if there more of it, but at least in the Feedback Assistant I managed to fix it by go to the Feedback Assistant Preferences (the second option in the main menu), in that window there is a dropdown-list and there the languages should be in english. Choose english and restart the app and it will start alright.

        I’m going to look if it’s affecting anything else. I still notice that the Feedback Assistant has a korean/whatever name when I rollover the icon, but otherwise it seems to work properly!

      • Patrick Haasewinkel - 10 years ago

        I have a Dutch installation and because this is not supported in Yosemite it shows another language in this case Japanese (I think) in Feedback Assistant.

        I tried the solution Tobbish wrote and that worked partially. The title still was in Japanese(?) and other third party software like Pixelmator had the same problem.

        PROBLEM SOLVED!

        Solution: select English as preferred language and delete all languages one can’t read/use. (Chinese, Japanes, Taiwanese, Russian, etc)

        Restart and all is normal in English.
        Choose Dutch again and make sure that English is the second language under Dutch.
        Restart and all is Dutch, all but the things Yosemite does’nt support (like third party programs). These are shown in English.

    • khaledzeidiyeh - 10 years ago

      Problems already!

      • Jabran Khan (@Lodoss123) - 10 years ago

        The KEY word is “Beta” Anyone testing any beta should expect problems and should report them. That is the sole purpose of betas

  4. PMZanetti - 10 years ago

    One build newer than Monday….that is gonna irritate me…LOL

  5. Alex Dixon (@Abcmsaj) - 10 years ago

    I get “This code has already been redeemed” when I try mine… Very weird.

  6. I can’t download. When I click on provided link, it redirect me to Mac AppStore, however it says the code is already redeemed! How is it possible?

    • same issue here

    • Bernardo Pérez - 10 years ago

      Same with me :(

    • Denis Ushli - 10 years ago

      Me too. is it possible that 1 Million download mark was already reached?

      • Tomer (@tomer1749) - 10 years ago

        ABSOLUTELY NOT. Because first 1 Million only could sign in .. So not ..

      • Imran Nasir - 10 years ago

        Just go in purchases tab and you will find it there :) if you have redeemed your code.

    • ttss6 - 10 years ago

      Click on the purchases tab in the Mac App Store and click Download

      • Kimberly Jeans - 10 years ago

        Half an hour plus of trying and then I see your comment and an a-ha moment! Thank you!! There it is in my purchases tab!! whoop!

      • Josh Ramsey - 10 years ago

        I’ve done this many times. Every time I get partial way through the download then it stops and says “OS X Yosemite Beta 1 failed to download” Ive tried on two computers with two different apple IDs and it’s really frustrating.

      • Josué Vallejos - 10 years ago

        awesome, thank you!!!

      • Shravan Kumar Nagabandi - 10 years ago

        Awesome… Thank you …

    • Burak Kaya - 10 years ago

      I was also looking for that. Its actually downloading. I notice that it started to download in launchpad.

  7. The weird thing that i keep getting “This code has been already redeemed”

  8. Fabrian Ivan Prasetya - 10 years ago

    It’s good. But it require 8 GB to install.

  9. Fabrian Ivan Prasetya - 10 years ago

    It’s only a redemption code in Mac AppStore

  10. Sam Waterbury - 10 years ago

    I just started downloading it now. If you didn’t get an email or anything, go to https://appleseed.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/ and at the bottom of the page will be a button to get the beta.

  11. tidersisbeter - 10 years ago

    I’m sure i would’ve gottten into the 1st million but i haven’t got an email yet :\

    • Denis Ushli - 10 years ago

      Loggin into the OS X Yosemite Beta Program estou get the code. However the code generated for me did no work. It says that it was already used. Probably the number of download has already reached 1M.

      • bystrzan - 10 years ago

        What’s in Your purchased tab in app store.app?
        I had the same issue, but then I went to this tab in app… voila! There is my Yosemite with progress bar.

  12. Denis Ushli - 10 years ago

    I have just tried to downloading the Yosemite but a message says that the Redemption code generated for mi was already used.

  13. David Spencer - 10 years ago

    keep getting his code has been already redeemed”

  14. Zac Hall - 10 years ago

    ANM3XTHKPET7

  15. Marcus Samual Winchester - 10 years ago

    Guys, for this to work, you have to go to Apple’s website, go to the OSX Yosemite page, go to the bottom to go to the test sign up page then log in on that page and go from there

  16. Fabrian Ivan Prasetya - 10 years ago

    It’s only for 1st million signup

  17. Steven Moore (@Stniuk) - 10 years ago

    If you check your downloads on the app store you might find it already downloading.

    Has seen anything about making a new partition for this when you already have a bootcamp partition. I read that you can no longer boot into windows bootcamp after you install this way.

  18. David Spencer - 10 years ago

    still can’t get in

  19. Rajal Talapian - 10 years ago

    Just go to the beta program website where you signed up in the first place, don’t wait for the email. Just sign in and follow the instructions!

  20. tidersisbeter - 10 years ago

    mine didn’t work at first but luckily i’d gotten my girlfriend to signup when it was released so I tried using her code she was sent and now it’s working :)

  21. curious if this beta will pop up as an update for people running DP4 like me..

    • jauntee - 10 years ago

      no, DP is more feature enabled than Public Beta. I stuck with DP4

    • jauntee - 10 years ago

      also note the DP4 does not have feedback assistant. I didn’t enable cloud Drive and I’m noticing any changes in my pages documents on DP4 will not be saved to iCloud, but changes made on Maverick or on iOS eight on my iPhone and Pages will show up on DP4

  22. nordpinsel (@nordpinsel) - 10 years ago

    Still not working…shows that the code is already used.

  23. Kevin Settles (@kaevin) - 10 years ago

    My code isn’t working either. Man, I was looking forward to that all week and now it is not working. :/

  24. Bernardo Pérez - 10 years ago

    My code didn’t work at all. But then I logged out and logged in with a different Apple ID, one I didn’t sign up before and the code I received worked.

  25. Brandon C. Haberman - 10 years ago

    My download keeps on stopping and resetting. Am now on my third or fourth go around.

  26. My download keeps erroring out; I get a few 100MB’s (or even up to 2GB) downloaded, then the download restarts itself and eventually produces an error massage saying there was a problem with the download :(

    Oh well, it’s probably due to the large volume of people downloading right now; I’ll give it time but hopefully it smooths out soon :/

    • Josh Ramsey - 10 years ago

      I’ve been having the same problem for hours. Let me know if you find a fix/workaround

      • I tried again a few more times and it eventually finished; maybe it’s being alleviated due to the 1-million download limit? Wish I had a more concrete answer :(

  27. When are they going to update the icloud drive pricing?

  28. Gabriel Pons Coll - 10 years ago

    Downloaded and installing on my iMac & MacBook Air…..

  29. Logan Jastremski - 10 years ago

    My redemption code is not working what should I do?

  30. Site is down
    We’re busy updating the site and we’ll be back soon

  31. Desai Hiren - 10 years ago

    i didnt get email yet

  32. micro guide (@onestopnyc) - 10 years ago

    If it says CODE REDEEMED, Go into the PURCHASED portion of the App Store (mac) and you will see the download link. Been trying for an hour to download but it fails every time so far as it reaches the 5.07GB

  33. Ashley Thomas - 10 years ago

    I get the “We’ll be back. We’re busy updating the site and will be back soon.” message when I try and go to the site to login and download the beta.

    • jrox16 - 10 years ago

      Apple’s servers (the ones dedicated to this public beta) are probably on fire right now.

  34. doesnt say purchased on my computer.

  35. Will it be possible to run Windows (BootCamp) after installing this beta?

  36. Michael Perry (@Alticus) - 10 years ago

    Mine authorized just fine and I’ve been using it. I was already using the Developers preview before this, this is much more stable than the last DP

  37. haha apples servers are going bananas. “site is under heavy load” got mine to start downloading now…

  38. Nick Kisner - 10 years ago

    Mine installed and is running with 0 problems. It was so easy and I love seamless installs. iTunes updated to v. 12 right after my install. Everything is perfect.

  39. Hi, I installed the Yosemite Beta, but what some app that ask me to log in (it has an icon with exclamation mark) is in Japanese – which I don’t understand, so don’t dare to log in or do anything with that. Can I change the language on that specific app somehow?

    • Ard van der Heijden - 10 years ago

      You can go to the preferences in this app. Just go to the menu that normally is the application menu. So the menu immediately right to the apple menu. Click the menu item that has ‘…’ at the end (This is usually the preferences … item). There you will find a pull-down box. Click it and select the preferred language. Close the window, restart the feedback application and it will open in the preferred language…

  40. Tom Cohen (@Tom_cohen432) - 10 years ago

    ho, no don’t do it!
    just stay with mavericks something like forever, you’ll gonna be sorry for it like iOS 7

  41. I logged out in my beta program and sign in again, i receive a new code and i can download the beta.

  42. Hey is there a way we can do a partition on the mac and install OS X Yosemite on it since its just a beta? I don’t really wanna give away Mavericks due to its perfect stability until the Final release.

  43. Saleem Waheed - 10 years ago

    i didn’t get my code so far it seems i m far away from apple store lol

  44. Ronnie Kie (@RonnieKie) - 10 years ago

    Can anyone tell me if microsoft office is working with yosemite beta? only really apps i need…

  45. Just to let you all know that my redeem issue is fixed right after the website came back online. Download has started.

  46. Kursten Buttigieg - 10 years ago

    i haven’t received it yet :( did anyone receive it

  47. Phil Jones - 10 years ago

    I downloaded and ran the beta program with no problem. It kicks me right over to the App Store Update page just like it should. Then it thinks for a while and tells me there are no updates available. What??? What am I doing wrong?

  48. For those that are running it, how is the stability? Is it awful, or even better than Mavericks?

    • CLK (@CLK16) - 10 years ago

      It’s been running for me with no issues so far.

      • Jagroop SanDhu - 10 years ago

        hey can i download without making any backup ?

    • Eric Amorozo - 10 years ago

      I like it. I don’t see much of a difference besides cosmetic changes but it seems to run faster on my iMac than Mavericks did. Installing on my Mac Pro now.

  49. “OS X Yosemite Beta 1 failed to download” <—- I get this error. Is there some solution for this?

    • Anutr Sivakoses - 10 years ago

      Im getting the issue also. I’m gonna take a wild guess that the servers are under fire atm and you should just keep trying. BTW, if you got it to work let me know please :)

      • Justin Diaz - 10 years ago

        I get the same error. Ive tried multiple times with no success yet… =(

    • Brandon Lochridge - 10 years ago

      Yep… getting this error too.

    • same problems here also. i keep click the download button hundreds of time already.

      • The servers were over saturates, not the million mark, I downloaded at 11:00 pm central time It downloaded in a little less than an hour. Installed in a half hour. It looks good, feels a bit faster haven’t tried it much out. Boot seem a little slow in my opinion but it’s beta who knows what will happen next. Doesn’t detect bootcamp in the startup preference, but holding down option key at reboot logs you up perfectly. Will play with it some more later.

  50. rettun1 - 10 years ago

    Do I REALLY need to put it on another machine/hard drive? I know there is risk involved, but I feel like it’d be fine…

  51. Wong Sing Chi (@Phycheez) - 10 years ago

    Does it have any difference from Developer Preview 4?

    • fibric - 10 years ago

      DP4 is 14A298i
      PB is 14A297a

      possibly somehow outdated already at launch.

  52. Jagroop SanDhu - 10 years ago

    do i have to make a backup if i want to install yosemite ?

  53. Jonathan Moreno - 10 years ago

    For anyone who is still having issues with downloading the beta, try “leaving the program.” There is a little button at the bottom that you can click, then re-register and it generates a new code. Mine has been giving me the error message since 6 O’CLOCK!!! Now it’s downloading again, hopefully it works this time.

    • AugustGreengem - 10 years ago

      Been trying to download it since it went up but still no luck up until now. I just hope that a lot have downloaded their copies so that the servers won’t be too overloaded.

    • What do you mean by “leaving the program?” Like getting a new code or something like that?

      • Jonathan Moreno - 10 years ago

        So leave the program, and then sign up again for the program. But it didn’t work for me last night so idk how effective that was lol. However trying again this morning and up to 3 gb, highest mine has been so far.

  54. EquityReleaseOZ - 10 years ago

    Big Problem… Outlook for Mac 2011 broken on Yosemite Public Beta.
    It launches without a Home Screen!
    Menu Items operate but can’t see any emails, calendar, contacts etc.

  55. Jabran Khan (@Lodoss123) - 10 years ago

    Idiots are not compatible with beta’s

  56. Alex Lim - 10 years ago

    Redeemed for it. But after downloading for like 300mb of it, its either error downloading or it restart download start from 0mb. Have been repeated for more than 10 times… Tried to download since morning 8am till now 4.50pm (Malaysia Time GMT+8)

  57. Nathan Arnold - 10 years ago

    I’m using it now its so good.

  58. Martin de Grenoble - 10 years ago

    When I click in the link;, AppStore does not open, and Safari goes back to the home page. Someone can help with this ?

  59. I downloaded OS X Yosemite beta last night and it seems working flawlessly. so far I like it

  60. Code got renewed in the evening download took about 1 hour and 30 miuntes to install. Working fine, boot time a little slow in my opinion al else seems fine.

  61. Jaedre (@itzJaedre) - 10 years ago

    I installed yesterday…. so far no major issues. System Preferences app froze on me once but other than that i haven’t noticed anything.

  62. fibric - 10 years ago

    I am in but I see that my DP4 installation has a slightly higher version number than PB has. DP4 is 14A298i and PB is 14A297a. So I am not going to install the PB and stay with DP4.

  63. I feel bad to say but I did not have a single problem downloading Yosemite to my MacBook Pro or even my old White MacBook. It was a bit slow as to be expected but running perfectly!! I love iTunes 12. Such a nice interface.

  64. King David (@lordkaufman) - 10 years ago

    IS any anybody else else getting “an error occurred” along with having to download it again and again and again? every time it gets close to done it stops working and it says that it failed to download.

  65. AugustGreengem - 10 years ago

    Been trying to download it for more than 24 hours now. Still no luck. :(

  66. Does anybody face the same problem where the clock 24hour function isn’t working

  67. Saleem Waheed - 10 years ago

    i lost os x Yosemite when i was downloading so now i can’t enter with same redeem code. plz help me how to get a new redeem code or get back into downloading with the same code i have entered .

Author

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Benjamin Mayo

Benjamin develops iOS apps professionally and covers Apple news and rumors for 9to5Mac. Listen to Benjamin, every week, on the Happy Hour podcast. Check out his personal blog. Message Benjamin over email or Twitter.