A brief history of installing Mac OS: Mac OS X and beyond

With Mac OS X came a new tool for installing and updating the system, quite different from what had been used in Classic Mac OS. The Mac OS X Installer app uses packages (.pkg), and metapackages (.mpkg) containing multiple packages to be installed together. Apple thus provided installations and updates as metapackages that could either be downloaded from its update servers using Software Update, or from the update’s web page. The same method was used until Big Sur, when updates changed again.

A system update in Mac OS X 10.1.3 in March 2002 was installed by the Installer app following authentication.

This update required just 148 MB of disk space, and could readily be accommodated by any of these volumes of 11.5 GB capacity.

Most updates were concluded by a period ‘optimising system performance’, as determined by the post-install scripts in the package.

Here, Software Update is delivering Security Update 2004-05-03 to Mac OS X 10.3.3 Panther. Some system components like QuickTime were still supplied and installed separately, but the great majority of Mac OS X was integrated into a whole, and there were no options to install separate components.

Over this period, the system and user data shared a single boot volume, and updating the system mainly involved replacement of updated files. Installer packages contained those replacements together with scripts that were run to update the contents of the boot volume. For much of this, firmware updates were still supplied and installed separately, although later they were integrated into macOS updates.

Until the introduction of System Integrity Protection (SIP) in El Capitan, the only protection provided to system files and folders was in their permissions. Incomplete or incorrect installations and updates were therefore not uncommon, as despite its name, SIP didn’t have any means of verifying the integrity of system files. A procedure was introduced to verify directory structures and permissions against those listed in the Bill of Materials (BoM) for macOS updates, by repairing permissions, but that was still unable to verify the integrity of the files themselves.

Installer metapackages are highly portable, and were commonly downloaded to be installed on multiple Macs. To keep updates as small as possible, they were provided in two forms: a Delta update converted only the previous release, while a Combo update contained everything required to update the last major version and all intermediate minor versions in a single step.

The High Sierra 10.13 upgrade in September 2017 brought greatest change, with its inclusion of Apple’s new file system APFS. Macs that didn’t have a Fusion Drive had their system volume converted to APFS during the upgrade, although it was another year before the same happened to Fusion Drives.

Updates didn’t always work out right for everyone. This was a common problem with High Sierra Supplemental Update of 29 November 2017, for example.

This all changed with the first version of macOS to boot from a signed snapshot, Big Sur, in November 2020, to support the improved Secure Boot of Apple silicon Macs. This abandoned the use of Installer packages, relying instead on an Update Brain integrated into each installer app and downloaded update.

From then onwards, Apple has provided several different presentations of macOS installers and updates:

Updates are only delivered through Software Update or its command tool equivalent softwareupdate, and have to be downloaded from Apple’s servers, or delivered through a local Content Caching Server.
Full macOS installer apps are offered in the App Store then delivered through Software Update.
Full macOS installer packages are available through softwareupdate or direct from Apple’s servers, and are named InstallAssistant. When installed, these create a full installer app.
Full macOS installers are offered in Recovery, from where they’re downloaded from Apple’s servers.
Full IPSW images containing firmware, Recovery and macOS partitions can be installed to restore Apple silicon Macs in DFU mode, using Apple Configurator 2 or later versions of the Finder. Those effectively reset that Mac to factory condition with that version of macOS pre-installed.

There are further complications to this. For instance, an older macOS Installer app can’t be run in a newer major version of macOS. The workaround for that is to create a bootable installer volume, and boot from that to run its older installer.

macOS updates are supplied compressed, and require up to 30 minutes preparation before they can be installed.

There are now no optional installations, as every copy of any given version of macOS is identical within its Signed System Volume (SSV).

The size of these new updates is considerably greater than those of older Installer packages, particularly in Big Sur, as engineering optimisations were being performed.

This chart shows cumulative sizes of updates to macOS on Intel Macs from 10.14 Mojave, with its traditional single boot volume, through to macOS Sonoma 14.6. Each point represents the cumulative sum of all updates to that major version of macOS required to reach that minor version. Thus the point for 14.2 is the total of update sizes for 14.1, 14.1.1, 14.1.2 and 14.2. Sizes used aren’t those reported by Software Update, but those of the download itself, as reported in articles here, indexed on this page. Lines shown are best fits by linear regression.

Update sizes rose markedly from Mojave, with its single boot volume, to Catalina, with its boot volume group, and again to a peak in Big Sur, with the SSV. They fell again as Monterey introduced greater efficiency, and Ventura and Sonoma have been almost identical, and smaller than Mojave.

Apple silicon Macs started with the huge updates of Big Sur, which were even larger than those for Intel models, and benefitted from the improved efficiency of Monterey and Ventura. Unlike Intel Macs, though, Sonoma has seen further reduction in update sizes, although in each update they remain significantly larger than those for Intel models.

macOS Ventura in 2022 experimented with Rapid Security Responses (RSRs), much smaller updates intended to provide urgent security fixes to Safari and some of its supporting components. These take advantage of cryptexes, cryptographically verified disk images stored on the hidden Preboot volume. Updating cryptexes alone is far quicker too, as the SSV is left untouched. Unfortunately, the second RSR resulted in serious problems with Safari so had to be replaced three days later. The last RSR was released on 12 July 2023, and they appear to have been abandoned since.

Upgrading to the first release of the next major version of macOS had required downloading its full installer app from the App Store. Apple broke from this in macOS Ventura in October 2022, when that new macOS was installed as an update instead. Although this reduced its size and installation time required, it caught many users on the hop, as Apple provided no warning of the change. This approach has since become standard with both Sonoma and Sequoia.

Installing and updating the Mac’s operating system has probably changed more over the last 41 years than any other feature.