Updating macOS via command line : NYU Psych & CNS IT

Updating macOS via command line Print

Modified on: Sat, 8 Nov, 2025 at 9:32 PM

This is for doing a in-version update of macOS. The ARM and Intel versions are

a little different. Since Monterey (12.x), the commands below have worked pretty well.

From an admin user account, acquire a root shell via sudo su - root.

You must also have the password for a user account who has a secure token.

Typically this is the first user created or it may be given to you from someone

who has a secure token. Here I will refer to this user with a secure token as tokenuser.

Do softwareupdate --list to get the label for the macOS update.

ARM

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softwareupdate --install "label for macOS update" --restart --user tokenuser

Software Update Tool

Finding available software

Downloading macOS version requested

Password: <<< ------ the password for the tokenuser

Downloading: 53.90%

Downloading: 100.00%

Downloaded: macOS version requested

Restarting...

Intel