Having worked on UNIX/Linux for a few years I am partial to using the command line, like most users on the Mac I am in the GUI for the majority of the time, but I do like to know if there are ways you can do tasks from the terminal. Recently I have learned of a way that you can run software update on your Mac from the command line.
If you are an admin account on your Mac then open terminal and type softwareupdate -l, this will then list all the available updates. If you are not an admin user then you will need to type sudo softwareupdate -l then enter the password for an admin account.
You can also download the available updates without installing them by using the -d flag. If you want to get download and install all of the latest updates, then all you need to type is softwareupdate -ia. The i is install and the a is all available updates.
You can break it down even further, to see all the options available to you, then enter softwareupdate -h this will then show the full list of options that you can use.
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