Somewhat prompted by the Safari - Only available through Software Update? thread...

Is there any way to see which updates have been installed by the Software Update Part of the App Store (in Mountain Lion)?
In Snow Leopard and before software update let you see which updates had been installed on your machine. I have spectacularly failed to find the equivalent in the App Store. Am I missing something or is it just not there any more?

Doesn't look like it in the App store at least. There might be some useful info in \Library\Receipts\InstallHistory.plist but you'd need to parse the XML to find something specific. (NOTE: That's not ~\Library, it's Root Library).

You can also do -About This Mac - More Info - System report - Software/Installations which will at least allow you to do some sorting. I suspect anything whose source is 'Apple' rather than 'Mac App store' is an update of some sort.

The only way is to look at purchases and see if the app is installed. There are huge delays on when apps are updated on the App store. I have a number which have been updated and macupdate shows it as out of date but there are no updates on the App store.

Ah, but he wants to see which system updates he's installed, which the 'Purchases' section doesnt keep track of (or at least doesn't display). There must be a log somewhere, probably in Console.

Don't most console logs get vaped every time you restart?

Try about this computer section on the main menu. Apart from the version of the OS it will list all the various areas of the OS and you might find what you are looking for there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk.

If you're doing a Software Update, then obviously it'll tell you what hasn't been updated.
Wouldn't it make sense to think that if it doesn't appear in the update list, then it's up to date?

Well, yes indeed. But from the point of view of knowing what has or hasn't been installed on my system a blank screen saying no updates isn't necessarily helpful as I don't tend to have a hand list of every single updateable system component (and associated version number) and optional install to hand off the top of my head. In addition it can, on occassion, be useful to know when and what version of something was installed for troubleshooting purposes.

In other news, System Profiler to the rescue. It can indeed provide a list of all system updates, when they were installed and associated version numbers. Like what he said:

Bit late probably, but I stumbled across the answer while looking for something else!

Fire up System Information - either from the Utilities folder or from the link button within "About this Mac" - and look under the "Software" category for an item named "Installations" - click it!



Also shows third party installations too. Which is nice.
You can sort by software name, date installed, etc - by clicking the relevant column.