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Install macOS Updates Using the Command Line

#tutorial #devops #coding #tooling

Introduction

Hi there. In this article, I'll be going over how you can install system updates for macOS via the command line. The updates that can be installed include security updates, Xcode tools updates, all the way to a new version of macOS.

Let's begin.

YouTube Video

If you would prefer to see this article in video form, there is a YouTube video available below:

Checking for Updates

The first thing you'll need to do is open up a terminal app. This can be the default terminal app included with macOS, or it can be a third party app, such as iTerm2. No matter which, the process is the same.

You will also need to have a local account with administrative rights to the Mac as you will need to use sudo for most of the commands.

Once you have the terminal open, run:

softwareupdate -l
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or

softwareupdate --list
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Both of these commands do the exact same thing, which is to check if there are any updates available and show you what they are. During this article, I'll stick to using the -- version of the command switches but you can do whichever you prefer.

01

As you can see in above image, there are two updates available for my Mac (at the time of writing this). One is for Xcode tools and the other is an upgrade to macOS 26.4. Let's break down the output.

The label is the name of the update. This is the source identifier for the update which is used to install it, if you want to install just that update on it's own. I'll cover that shortly.

The title is a shorter name.

Then there's the version number, the size in KiB, a recommendation that it should be installed and finally an action to indicate a restart of the Mac will need to be done to apply the update, if required. If not, that will not be shown, as is the case with the Xcode tools.

Now, let's take a look at what options are available to install the updates.

Installing Updates

First up, if you just want to download an update, perhaps to install it at a later time when it's more convenient for you. For example, to download the macOS 26.4 update, run (I'm not going to at this point):

sudo softwareupdate --download 'macOS Tahoe 26.4-25E246'
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Make sure to put the update label in the quotation marks, otherwise it will fail if it has any spaces. If it doesn't have any spaces, you don't need them but I just do it that way anyhow.

Now, I'll install the macOS 26.4 update.

There are two ways that updates can be installed; Either individually by specifying the title of the update, or all of them if there are multiple available.

As I have two to install, I'll install the macOS 26.4 update on it's own first as that is needed for Xcode tools to be installed. To do that, I'll run:

sudo softwareupdate --install 'macOS Tahoe 26.4-25E246'
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Again, make sure the name of the updates is in the quotation marks.

Optionally, you can add on --restart to have the Mac reboot after the update is installed and --verbose to get more information during the downloading and installation of the update(s).

02

Once it was installed, I did a manual reboot to finish off the installation.

With macOS 26.4 installed, I'll just check that Xcode tools is still listed by running:

sudo softwareupdate --list
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03

It's still there so rather than just installing it on it's own using the same method for the 26.4 update, I'll use the method to install all available updates, even though it's just the one. To do that, run:

sudo softwareupdate --install --all
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There is no need to restart the Mac after this. Well, usually there isn't.

04

That's now installed. I'll run softwareupdate --list again to check if there is any other updates. There isn't so that's all the updates installed.

05

Other Options

Now, there are other options available for installing updates, which you can find by running:

softwareupdate --help
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Just to give you an example, you can limit it to just recommended updates or even just macOS updates, if that's what you want.

Update History

The last thing I want to cover that is the history of what has been installed so far. Run:

softwareupdate --history
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06

That shows you which updates were installed, the version and the date they were installed. This covers updates that were installed via the softwareupdate command line tool and the Software Update section in System Settings.

And that's it for this article.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day.

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