10.6: A Service to 'install and keep' software updates

Dec 02, '09 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: systemsboy

Snow Leopard only hintDo you miss the ability to download and keep software updates directly from the Software Update application? I sure do. So I wrote a Service (81KB download) for Snow Leopard that will download and keep a copy of all updates recommended by the Software Update app.

The service will download the updates, then copy them to a folder called Updates in your home folder. It will then launch Software Update and allow you to install the updates without re-downloading them. The Service itself is just two steps, and you can open it up and look at it yourself in Automator.

If you'd like to recreate this yourself instead of downloading, the two steps are:

  1. Ask for Confirmation -- put in any message you'd like displayed before the updates download.
  2. Run Shell Script -- contains the following code:
    softwareupdate -d -a
    rsync -PavE /Library/Updates/ ~/Updates
    open /System/Library/CoreServices/Software\ Update.app
Save that as a Service and you're ready to go. Alternatively, download from the above direct-download links, unzip, and copy to your user's Library/Services folder; it should immediately show up in the Services menu of any application.

If you need more info, you can read about how it works on my blog. So far I've found this to be extremely handy.

[robg adds: I created a local mirror of the download file (81KB download), and added the source code to the hint for handy one-stop shopping. More details are available in the author's blog entry on the topic.]

Comments (4)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20091120094255493