10.7: Xcode updating when the installer is moved

Aug 29, '11 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: tbolioli

If you are like me you saw the 4 GB Xcode installer the Mac App Store dropped in the Applications folder and promptly moved it to an external drive (Xcode installed is another 8 GBs or so making its footprint around 12 GB).

I have good news for those who want to keep the installer (to avoid having to download it again) while not having it on your primary drive. If the drive it is on is mounted when you run the App Store updater, the App Store will find it and update it. This way if you need to update the installation, you have the latest installer.

On that note, it looks like from the warnings and popups from today's Xcode update, large applications which require updating the installer and not the app (like Xcode) will be delta updated in their installer. Then to actually update the installation, one will have to run the installer which then will update the installation.

So rest assured, moving that large installer out of the applications folder onto a secondary drive should work just fine.

[crarko adds: I haven't re-downloaded the Xcode installer to put on another drive to try this, but it would be a very sweet and intelligent updater if it works this way. Also, can people confirm if this works on any other App Store installed software? Please share your results in the comments.]

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