🔗 Software Update on the Command Line

Software update (the one in System Settings) failed on my laptop because I didn’t have enough disk space. The UI doesn’t give you the ability to chose which updates to run. But there’s a command line version that does.

❯ softwareupdate --list
Software Update Tool

Finding available software
Software Update found the following new or updated software:
\* Label: Command Line Tools for Xcode-15.3
        Title: Command Line Tools for Xcode, Version: 15.3, Size: 707501KiB, Recommended: YES,
\* Label: Command Line Tools for Xcode-16.3
        Title: Command Line Tools for Xcode, Version: 16.3, Size: 861139KiB, Recommended: YES,
\* Label: macOS Sequoia 15.4-24E248
        Title: macOS Sequoia 15.4, Version: 15.4, Size: 3266096KiB, Recommended: YES, Action: restart,

❯ softwareupdate --install "Command Line Tools for Xcode-15.3"
❯
❯ softwareupdate --install "macOS Sequoia 15.4-24E248"

You pass the “Label” to the install command.