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I note the question How can I pause the download on Mac App Store and then resume it later? saying that downloads can be paused in Launchpad. However, my Mac (macOS 10.12.1) has started to download an update automatically. I can see that in the Activity Monitor, where the storedownloadd is top of the network received bytes listing. And, now I notice it, I see the Launchpad icon in the dock is showing a download bar, "1.05GB of 1.54 GB", but right-clicking it gives me no pause option. It's probably the Xcode update, since that is listed as due and they are typically GBytes. Launchpad shows no Xcode icon, and no other icon in Launchpad shows downloading. Right-click of the app store icon in the dock doesn't give me a pause option. The updates screen in the app store doesn't seem to offer a pause option.

How do I pause a Mac app store automatic update in Sierra, please? I need to stop the Mac using all my network bandwidth for the next few hours.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Open System Preferences and you'll find an item App Store there.

Disable the "Download newly available updates in the background" option. This way your Mac will still let you know when new updates are available, but it will not download them automatically.

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  • That doesn't work, I'm afraid. I tried that and it does not pause an auto matic dowload that has already started. Plus, I want auto-download normally. I just want to pause this one for a while.
    – emrys57
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 10:03
  • Ok, true... this didn't answer your question. It would just prevent automatic downloads to start at all.
    – Sky
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 10:07
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In an automated update, the Mac App Store Update page initially shows buttons labelled Update against each app which is due for an update. However, one of these has already started updating. But it doesn't say which one. I guessed which app had started updating, and hit the Update button for that app in the Mac App Store update page. I then waited a long time - many minutes - for the Mac App Store page to refresh. When it did eventually refresh, it gave me a download bar for the auto-updating app, saying that a GByte had already downloaded, and the Update button had turned into a Pause button. I then had to hit that twice, but it did eventually pause the download.

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