How to List All Updates on macOS

Every application will update eventually with additional features or bug fixes. The operating system will have its own updates from time to time. However, most updates come in a package or provide less information about updates later on. Users may want to see the recently updated applications on their macOS. The recording of updates changes considerably between versions of operating systems.

In this article, we will show you some of the methods to list all updates that can be applied to most of the macOS systems without any issues.

Listing All Recent Updates through Terminal

The Terminal is a command-line system that can be used to control and make changes to the operating system. The Terminal application will be in the Utilities folder in the Applications. Users can access it through searching it in Spotlight easily. Through Terminal users can get the list of all updated applications by typing a single command. Follow the below steps to check how it works.

1. Hold Command and press Space to open Spotlight, type Terminal to search, and press Enter to open it.

   

2. Directly type the following command to get the list of all updated applications.

   softwareupdate --history

   

3. It will list all the updates with version and date.
4. If you type all with the same command as shown below. It will also show the installers on the list.

   softwareupdate --history --all

   

Listing all Recent Updates through System Information

The System Information application in macOS is where the users can get a summary of information about their software, hardware, and network. This will have the information for all the applications that are recently installed or updated on the system. This provides a much better preview than the first method and users don’t need to type any kind of command to open it. It is pretty simple to open as shown below in a few steps.

1. Hold Command key and press Space to open Spotlight, type System Information to search, and press Enter to open it.

   

2. Scroll down the left panel and click on Applications that are listed under the Software category. It will show all the installed applications and the last modified date for it.

   

3. You can also find some of the other software by clicking the Installation option under the Software category as shown below: