This happens to every Mac user from time to time: you read on MacTechNews about an update that is available for macOS, but a trip to System Settings/General/Software Update has no consequences. Sometimes a Mac doesn’t discover that an update is pending until days later. Luckily, there are ways to get your Mac to show updates – but they’re hidden in the command line. To get your Mac to check the update status again, open Terminal Utility. There you enter the command in the input line
softwareupdate –list –include-config-data
and confirm the command with the Enter key. The Mac then begins to connect to Apple’s servers. The “–include-config-data” option, which Apple doesn’t say a word about in the documentation, has a decisive advantage: it ensures that macOS also searches for new configuration files for XProtect.
The additional option “–include-config-data” ensures that the XProtect status is checked.
Eliminate sources of error
In addition to hiccups when checking for updates, there are other reasons why an update can fail. macOS requires a lot of free space to download the update and create a new system volume. That’s why you should take the opportunity to clean up before an update – an SSD that is as empty as possible speeds up the Mac and extends the lifespan of the hard drive. Mobile Macs also need to be connected to power before the update can begin. Oakley also recommends restarting, if necessary in safe mode, to resolve update blockages.
Visual security check
Howard Oakley discovered the hidden option – he uses it, among other things, for his free app SilentKnight, which checks the relevant security settings of the Mac when it starts and summarizes them clearly in a window.
SilentKnight checks XProtect, update status and security settings of macOS in one go.
How updates work
Over the past decade, Apple’s developers have extensively revised the way macOS updates – from an (error-prone) script-based methodology to an extremely stable construct of finite machines that recreates the updated system volume, secures it cryptographically and sends anonymized status reports to Apple.
