The Principal Dev – Masterclass for Tech Leads

The Principal Dev – Masterclass for Tech LeadsJuly 17-18

Join

mas-cli

mas

A command-line interface for the Mac App Store. Designed for scripting & automation.

current release version supported OS: macOS 10.15+ license: MIT language: Swift 5.9 build, test & lint status dependencies status

📲 Installation

🍺 Homebrew

Homebrew is the preferred way to install:

brew install mas

⚠️ macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or newer is required to install mas from the Homebrew core formula.

🔌 MacPorts

MacPorts is an alternative way to install:

sudo port install mas

⚠️ macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or newer is required to install mas from MacPorts.

🧮 Older macOS Versions

🍻 Custom Homebrew tap

The mas custom Homebrew tap provides pre-built bottles for all macOS versions since 10.11 (El Capitan). The newest versions of mas, however, are only available for macOS 10.15+ (Catalina or newer).

To install mas from the custom tap:

brew install mas-cli/tap/mas

🐙 GitHub Releases

Alternatively, binaries & sources are available from GitHub Releases.

🕊 Swift 5 Runtime Support

mas requires Swift 5 runtime support. macOS 10.14.4 (Mojave) & newer include it, but earlier releases do not. Without it, running mas might report errors similar to:

dyld: Symbol not found: _$s11SubSequenceSlTl

To get Swift 5 support on macOS versions older than 10.14.4 (Mojave), you can:

🤳 Usage

🪪 App IDs

Each application in the Mac App Store has an integer app identifier (app ID). mas commands accept app IDs as arguments & output app IDs to uniquely identify apps.

mas search & mas list can be used to find the app IDs of relevant apps.

Alternatively, to find an app's app ID:

  1. Find the app in the Mac App Store
  2. Select Share > Copy Link
  3. Extract the app ID from the URL.

🛍 Info from the Mac App Store

None of the commands in this section require you to be logged into an Apple Account, neither for your macOS user nor in the Mac App Store.

mas search <search-term> searches by name for applications available from the Mac App Store. Providing the --price flag includes each app's price in the output.

$ mas search Xcode
497799835 Xcode
688199928 Docs for Xcode
[...]

mas info

mas info <app-id> outputs more detailed information about an application available from the Mac App Store.

$ mas info 497799835
Xcode 16.0 [Free]
By: Apple Inc.
Released: 2024-09-16
Minimum OS: 14.5
Size: 2.98 GB
From: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12&uo=4

📚 Info from Your Local App Library

All the commands in this section require you to be logged into an Apple Account for your macOS user.

mas list

mas list outputs all the applications on your Mac that were installed from the Mac App Store.

$ mas list
497799835 Xcode       (15.4)
640199958 Developer   (10.6.5)
899247664 TestFlight  (3.5.2)

mas outdated

mas outdated outputs all applications installed from the Mac App Store on your Mac that have pending upgrades.

$ mas outdated
497799835 Xcode (15.4 -> 16.0)
640199958 Developer (10.6.5 -> 10.6.6)

Run mas upgrade to install pending upgrades.

⬇️ Installing Apps

All the commands in this section require you to be logged into an Apple Account in the Mac App Store.

Depending on your Apple Account settings, you might need to re-authenticate yourself in the Mac App Store to perform a purchase, install, lucky, or upgrade, even if you are already signed in to an Apple Account in the Mac App Store.

mas purchase

mas purchase <app-id>… installs free applications that you haven't yet gotten/"purchased" from the Mac App Store.

purchase is currently a misnomer, because it currently can only "purchase" free apps. To purchase apps that cost money, please purchase them directly in the Mac App Store.

$ mas purchase 497799835
==> Downloading Xcode
==> Installed Xcode

mas install

mas install <app-id>… installs apps that you have already gotten/"purchased" from the Mac App Store. Providing the --force flag re-installs the app even if it is already installed on your Mac.

$ mas install 497799835
==> Downloading Xcode
==> Installed Xcode

mas lucky

mas lucky <search-term> installs the first result that would be returned by mas search <search-term>. Like mas install, mas lucky can only install apps that have previously been gotten/"purchased".

$ mas lucky Xcode
==> Downloading Xcode
==> Installed Xcode

🆕 Upgrading Apps

All the commands in this section require you to be logged into an Apple Account in the Mac App Store.

mas only installs/upgrades applications from the Mac App Store.

Use softwareupdate(8) to install system updates (e.g., Xcode Command Line Tools, Safari, etc.)

mas upgrade

mas upgrade upgrades outdated apps installed from the Mac App Store. Without any arguments, it upgrades all such apps.

$ mas upgrade
Upgrading 2 outdated applications:
Xcode (15.4) -> (16.0)
Developer (10.6.5) -> (10.6.6)
==> Downloading Xcode
==> Installed Xcode
==> Downloading Developer
==> Installed Developer

Upgrades can be performed selectively by providing app IDs to mas upgrade.

$ mas upgrade 715768417
Upgrading 1 outdated application:
Xcode (15.4) -> (16.0)
==> Downloading Xcode
==> Installed Xcode

Mac App Store Account Management

All the commands in this section interact with the Apple Account for which you are signed in to the Mac App Store. These commands do not interact with the Apple Account for which your macOS user is signed in.

mas signin

⛔ The signin command is not supported on macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) or newer. On those macOS versions, please sign in via the Mac App Store instead. Please see Known Issues.

On macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or older, mas signin <apple-id> signs in to the specified Apple Account in the Mac App Store.

$ mas signin mas@example.com
Password:

Providing the --dialog flag signs in using a graphical dialog provided by Mac App Store.

mas signin --dialog mas@example.com

You can also embed your password in the command.

mas signin mas@example.com MyPassword

mas signout

mas signout signs out from the current Apple Account in the Mac App Store.

🍺 Homebrew integration

mas integrates with homebrew-bundle. If mas is installed, when you run brew bundle dump, your Mac App Store apps will be included in the created Brewfile. See the homebrew-bundle docs for more details.

⚠️ Known Issues

💥 Changed Apple Private Frameworks

mas uses multiple undocumented Apple private frameworks to implement much of its functionality. Over time, Apple has silently changed these frameworks, breaking some functionality. Known issues include:

⏳ Eventual Consistency

The Mac App Store operates on eventual consistency, so the versions seen by various parts of mas or the Mac App Store might be inconsistent for short periods of time. This might cause symptoms like #384 & #387.

📱 iOS & iPadOS Apps

Apple Silicon Macs can install & run iOS & iPadOS apps from the Mac App Store. mas does not yet support such apps. #321

📺 Using tmux

mas operates via the same system services as the Mac App Store. These exist as separate processes with communication through XPC. As a result of this, mas experiences similar problems as the pasteboard when running inside tmux. A wrapper tool exists to fix pasteboard behavior which also works for mas.

You should consider configuring tmux to use the wrapper, but, if you do not wish to do this, it can be used on a one-off basis as follows:

brew install reattach-to-user-namespace
reattach-to-user-namespace mas install

📭 mas list, mas outdated, mas uninstall, or mas upgrade does not detect installed apps

mas 2.0.0+ sources data for installed Mac App Store apps from macOS's Spotlight metadata store.

mas can only interact with installed Mac App Store apps if they have been indexed by the Spotlight Metadata Server (aka MDS) background processes.

You can check if a Mac App Store app has been indexed in the metadata store by running:

## General format:
$ mdls -rn kMDItemAppStoreAdamID /path/to/app
## Outputs nothing if the app is not indexed
## Outputs the app ID if the app is indexed

## Example:
$ mdls -rn kMDItemAppStoreAdamID /Applications/WhatsApp.app
310633997

If an app has been indexed in the metadata store, given its app ID, you can find the path to the app by running:

$ mdfind 'kMDItemAppStoreAdamID == 310633997'
/Applications/WhatsApp.app

If any of your Mac App Store apps are not indexed, you can enable/rebuild the metadata store for all file system volumes by running:

sudo mdutil -Eai on

🚫 When something doesn't work

If you see the following error, it's probably because you haven't yet "purchased" the app through the Mac App Store. See #46.

This redownload is not available for this Apple Account either because it was bought by a different user or the item was refunded or canceled.

If mas doesn't work for you as expected (e.g., you can't install/upgrade apps), run mas reset, then try again. If the issue persists, please file a bug. All feedback is much appreciated! ✨

🏗 Build from source

You can build from Xcode by opening the root mas directory, or from the terminal:

Scripts/build

Build output can be found in the .build directory within the project.

🧪 Tests

Tests are written using Quick & Nimble.

Scripts/test

📄 License

Code is under the MIT license.

mas was originally created by Andrew Naylor (@argon on GitHub / @argon on X).

Join libs.tech

...and unlock some superpowers

GitHub

We won't share your data with anyone else.