MacUpdater FAQ - TABLE OF CONTENTS:


Information:

Q: What is the purpose of MacUpdater?

Q: What will 'MacUpdater' show as the 'Latest Version'? What about upgrades, name-changes, etc?

Q: What about security? Where does MacUpdater download updates from?

Q: Does MacUpdater have accurate version information for all Mac-apps?

Q: Why does updating all apps require two separate clicks?

Q: Will updates to 'Beta'-versions show up in MacUpdater?

Q: Will MacUpdater offer or install updates that do not run on my macOS version?

Q: Will MacUpdater upgrade paid apps to new major versions that may have an upgrade-fee?

Q: Can MacUpdater update every single (non-'Mac App Store') app to the newest version?

Q: Can MacUpdater hide (Paid) Upgrades or stick to an older major-version of an app?

Q: Can MacUpdater update apps downloaded from the 'Mac App Store'?

Q: Can MacUpdater make Backups of old apps before updating them or Backups of the new app-downloads?

Q: What kinds of non-app software does MacUpdater support?

Q: What are your terms-of-service?

Operation:

Q: Why does MacUpdater show me some updates (e.g. Microsoft Office apps) before they seem to be available?

Q: Can MacUpdater help me migrate to a new 'Apple Silicon' (ARM) Mac?

Q: Can MacUpdater help me move my installed apps to a new Mac?

Q: Can MacUpdater help me to reinstall an app?

Q: Why do some apps not show up in MacUpdater?

Q: Does MacUpdater support setting custom homepages for my apps?

Q: Does MacUpdater support selecting custom updater apps?

Q: What if an app shows as 'outdated' only in MacUpdater but not in the 'Mac App Store' or vice versa?

Q: Why is an app shown as 'outdated' although I have the newest version installed too?

Q: What about apps that I have installed twice, in an old and a new version?

Q: What happens when applying an update and the new version of the app has a new name?

Q: Why doesn't MacUpdater have a menu bar or show up in the ⌘-Tab app switcher?

Q: Why do I need to launch MacUpdater twice to see its window?

Q: The latest version of an app has a bug. Will you remove it from MacUpdater?

Q: The 'Current Version' that MacUpdater displays for an app does not seem to be correct. Why?

Q: The 'Release Date' that MacUpdater displays for an app does not seem to be correct. Why?

Q: Why can I not re-scan as often as I want?

Q: What are the alternatives to a 'full scan'?

Q: Where can I download and how can I use the command-line version of MacUpdater?

Q: How can I prevent information about self-made or company-internal apps from being sent to the Database?

Q: Why are some apps from the 'Mac App Store' not hidden when I select 'Hide Mac App Store apps'?

Q: MacUpdater says one of my apps is malware/spyware/adware and won't be tracked. Can you re-add support for it?

Q: Why does MacUpdater now need 'full disk access'?

Q: Can I use or automate MacUpdater using 'Alfred' or from the command-line?

Problems:

Q: I receive a message about a 'Quarantine' when launching MacUpdater. Why? How can I fix this?

Q: MacUpdater launches in a language that I don't understand. Why? How can I fix this?

Q: MacUpdater doesn't seem to work due to internet connection problems. What can I do?

Q: Why does the menubar sometimes become unclickable?

Q: Why isn't MacUpdater launching at startup?

Purchases:

Q: Is MacUpdater 1 still supported?

Q: How long will MacUpdater 2 remain supported?

Q: How long will MacUpdater 3 remain supported?

Q: Why does the MacUpdater 3 upgrade cost money? Do I have to upgrade?

Q: I think the MacUpdater 3 upgrade terms are unfair! You charge too much!

Q: So what are your maintenance costs anyway? MacUpdater just works anyway, right?

Q: Are any discounts available for MacUpdater, e.g. for students?

Q: Will MacUpdater be offered for purchase on the Mac App Store?

Q: Can I upgrade a 'Standard' license to a 'Pro' license?

Q: How can I purchase a MacUpdater license for a friend?

Q: What can I expect after purchase? What is your refund policy?

Q: How will I receive my license and receipt after purchase?

Q: How can I find out my license-code?

Q: On how many Macs can I use MacUpdater?

Q: How can I activate MacUpdater on another Mac?

Q: How can I change the e-mail address associated with my purchase or license?

Q: How can I recover my lost license key?

Advanced:

Q: I have activated the Privileged Install Helper. What if I ever wish to remove it?

Q: How can I get a list of my installed software?

Q: How do I make MacUpdater use my custom app icons?


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Q: What is the purpose of MacUpdater?

A:

The purpose of MacUpdater is to:

1.) Find out which of the apps that you have installed outside of the 'Mac App Store' are not currently up-to-date.

2.) Get notified automatically about new updates to your (non-'Mac App Store') apps with the periodic (or on-demand) scan.

3.) Quickly be able to update your apps to their newest version with the click of a button.



Q: Can MacUpdater update apps downloaded from the 'Mac App Store'?

A:

No. Apps downloaded from the 'Mac App Store' need to be updated by the 'Mac App Store' app. However, MacUpdater can open the 'Mac App Store'-app for your convenience.

Notice that you can configure your Mac to update 'Mac App Store' apps automatically so there is no need for MacUpdater to do the same thing as well.



Q: Does MacUpdater have accurate version information for all Mac-apps?

A:

It is probably impossible to have information about all apps, as new ones are created every day. However, we have:

Tier-1 support for more than 6.000 apps. You can update them to the newest version fully automatically from within MacUpdater.

Tier-2 support for more than 100.000 apps. These apps show the newest version information within MacUpdater, but MacUpdater is unable to actually update them. These apps are listed as 'un-updatable'.



Q: Can MacUpdater update every single (non-'Mac App Store') app to the newest version?

A:

No, and MacUpdater probably never will be able to update every single app. Some vendors design their apps in a way so that they can only be updated with their custom updater-apps. Notable here are Adobe and Microsoft. If you want to update those, MacUpdater will offer you to automatically launch the respective auto-updater app. Apart from those, we currently have support for updating more than 5000 of the most popular apps and this number is continuing to grow every day. For more details about app-support see the question above.



Q: Why does updating all apps ('QuickUpdate') require two separate clicks?

A:

Before updating any app you should check if there may be reasons to delay or avoid that specific update, or if that update can be made without having to purchase a new license (see 'Paid Upgrades' below). Note that the detection of 'paid upgrades' in MacUpdater is not - and cannot ever be - perfect. We separate the 'Update All Apps' functionality into two clicks (select & confirm) on purpose to encourage you to think about whether you really want to update each selected app. While updating an app is easy, downgrading to your previously installed version can take a lot more time and required expertise (though our optional backup feature can come in handy here!). If you have added an update to the queue by mistake, you can just click the 'Cancel Update' button - canceling is possible right up until the download is finished and the installation has been started.

If there are any apps that you do not want to see included in MacUpdater's default 'QuickUpdate' selection, this can be configured in the Settings.

Note that upgrades that MacUpdater deems to be major or paid will never be included in the default 'QuickUpdate' selection for your security.



Q: Why does MacUpdater show me some updates (e.g. Microsoft Office apps) before they seem to be available?

A:

Companies often make staged rollouts for applications with a lot of users, which means that they enable updates in groups bit by bit to prevent server overload. So, there is a random delay until your Microsoft or Dropbox AutoUpdater will show you the update that MacUpdater told you about and that is actually released according to their website. So if you receive an update-notification from MacUpdater for an app that has many users, but this app doesn't find the update when 'checking for updates', just wait for one or two days and try it again. In some rare cases there is also the possibility that a beta-release sneaked into MacUpdater's database, please see the question about 'Beta Versions' below.



Q: Is MacUpdater 1 still supported?

A:

MacUpdater has been supported from 2018 throughout 2022 and has been discontinued on 01-01-2023 after being supported for 5 years on a single 9.99$ purchase.
Despite being discontinued, you can still use MacUpdater 1. We've published a final version that works without our server-backend and which you can use indefinitely. Because this version does not receive any of our maintainaince updates anymore it is of limited use.



Q: How long will MacUpdater 2 remain supported?

A:

MacUpdater 2 has received new feature updates through 2021 and 2022 and will continue to be supported throughout 2023 and 2024 for all existing customers. We will continue to ship minor updates to maintain compatibility and full functionality until MacUpdater 2 will be discontinued on 01-01-2025.
After 01-01-2025 we will publish one final version of MacUpdater 2 that you will be able to use indefinitely. However, that version will not be able to connect to our server-backend or take advantage of our daily maintainaince, so it will be of limited use.

Q: How long will MacUpdater 3 remain supported?

A:

MacUpdater 3 has received many feature updates throughout 2023 and will continue to be supported throughout 2024 and 2025 for all existing customers. MacUpdater 3 will be discontinued on 01-01-2026.
After 01-01-2026 we will publish one final version of MacUpdater 3 that you will be able to use indefinitely. However, that version will not be able to connect to our server-backend or take advantage of our daily maintainaince, so it will be of limited use.



Q: Why does the MacUpdater 3 upgrade cost money? Do I have to upgrade?

A:

To finance the continued development and maintainance of MacUpdater, we need to charge an upgrade fee. However, MacUpdater 2 is still operational and will be supported until 01-01-2025, so there is absolutely no need to upgrade if you do not want to. The upgrade is optional and not mandatory.
If you think our upgrade terms are unfair or too expensive, please look here.



Q: I think the MacUpdater 3 upgrade terms are unfair! You charge too much!

A:

We love criticism about everything we do because it allows us to improve our products and services. But we feel like nothing could be further from the truth. Or rather, yes MacUpdater's licensing terms are unfair, but they are actually unfair to us.

MacUpdater's pricing is actually very very low. MacUpdater 1 went on sale in early 2018 for 9.99$ (without discounts) and was supported for 5 years on a single, extremely cheap purchase. MacUpdater 2 went on sale in early 2021 for 14.99$ and will be supported for 4 years in total. Our competition charges 40$ ... per year! Whatever kind of calculation you make, the cost of owning MacUpdater is a small fraction (between 1/16 and 1/4) of the cost of using their product. Even talking in absolute terms, MacUpdater costs you a few dollar per year, yet saves your (life)time with each and every update. If that isn't a great deal we don't know what is.

There is the common idea that MacUpdater is a care-free product and we don't have to perform any maintenance to keep it working. Even if this was the case, our pricing would be more than attractive. But actually MacUpdater needs constant intensive maintenance each and every day.



Q: So what are your maintenance costs anyway? MacUpdater just works anyway, right?

A:

There is a common misconception that because MacUpdater works so great that it works automatically, and there is little or no maintenance for us to do.
Another misconception is that version numbers are crowdsourced using our database and therefore work completely automatically anyway.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes the database is essential for what we do but cannot magically just make MacUpdater work. We actually have written more code to aid us in our extensive daily maintenance then for MacUpdater itself. Despite writing all this code and investing heavily in automation, we still need to perform many hours of manual labour each and every day to keep things working smoothly. Each day we run dozens of different complicated checks. Our system supports more than 80 different tags to improve support for apps within MacUpdater. Our config file contains maually-curated entries for more than 60.000 apps and is updated around a dozen times each day to keep things working fine. We've been running our daily maintenance now since mid-2018 each and every day without interruption. If things just 'seem to work fine' it is not because it just runs on its own, but because we never stop working on it. Around 80% of the work that goes into MacUpdater is actually for the daily maintenance going on invisibly behind the scenes.



Q: Are any discounts available for MacUpdater, e.g. for students?

A:

We feel that MacUpdater has a very very low price, both in terms of value, as well as in comparison to our competitor. Still, we know that not everyone will be able to pay the full price of MacUpdater. So, we have the following discounts available:
• there is an student discount of 40% applicable for students at schools, universites and other educational institutions
• there is another discount of 40% for people living outside of the 40 wealthiest countries
• there is also a 'combined' discount for a total discount of 60%

To apply for the discount just send us confirmation and we will provide you with the discount-code.

If neither of the existing discounts applies to you, but you still are unable to pay the full price of MacUpdater, just contact us and we will work something out.

NOTE: if you've purchased MacUpdater 2, you will automatically get an upgrade-discount on MacUpdater 3!



Q: Why is an app shown as 'outdated' although I have the newest version installed too?

Q: What about apps that I have installed twice, in an old and a new version?

A:

MacUpdater handles each installation of an app separately. If an app is installed twice, you'll see it twice in the list of 'all' apps. If one of those copies is outdated, you'll see this old version in the list of 'outdated' apps, even if you have the newest version of the app installed too. If you have an old version of an app installed additionally to the newest version you'll usually want to ignore the old copy since you already know that it isn't up-to-date. Just select the old app version and choose 'Ignore this App' (not 'Ignore Update'!) from the context- or app-menu. Your other, new version of this app will still be tracked by MacUpdater and you'll still receive notifications once the new version is not up-to-date anymore.



Q: Can MacUpdater help me migrate to a new 'Apple Silicon' (ARM) Mac?

A:

Yes, MacUpdater 3 can help you here. If you want your experience on a new 'Apple Silicon'-based Mac to be optimal, you'll want to use all your apps in an 'Apple Silicon'-native version to avoid using slow 'Rosetta' emulation. There are two tasks:
• Find out which of your 'Rosetta' based apps could be 'Apple Silicon'-native if you would update or upgrade to the latest version
• Find out which of your 'Rosetta' based apps could be 'Apple Silicon'-native if you would reinstall them

The first option may apply if you are using an old version of an app, and the vendor has since added 'Apple Silicon'-support to the latest version of the app. In most cases MacUpdater can update or upgrade the app for you with one click. Note that upgrading apps may require a new license or purchase from their vendor.

The second option may apply if the vendor provides two different downloads for their app (Intel & Apple Silicon) and you have the Intel version installed. In this case just reinstall the app using MacUpdater on your new 'Apple Silicon'-based Mac to get the native version.

Just select 'Apple Silicon Migration Assistant' from MacUpdater's 'Window' menu to find out which of your apps could be replaced with 'Apple Silicon'-native versions in one of the two ways described above.



Q: Can MacUpdater help me move my installed apps to a new Mac?

A:

Moving to a new Mac and specifically moving your apps to a new Mac is a task that can be done in a lot of different ways - depending on your specific requirements - both with facilities built into macOS (Migration Assistant, Time Machine, File Sharing, etc) as well as third-party apps (Carbon Copy Cloner, SuperDuper!, etc). In case you prefer to set up your new Mac in a 'clean' way (by avoiding Migration Assistant or Disk Cloning) you could just copy over all your apps to a new Mac via File Sharing, Air Drop or an external volume like an USB stick. If some apps refuse to work on your new Mac because they require 'installation' then you can just use MacUpdater to reinstall those apps. Note that this manual approach requires recreating or manually copying all your app preferences and will not work for those app that require an installer but cannot be reinstalled by MacUpdater (like Adobe apps). If you are unsure which approach is best, you should probably stick to Apple's Migration Assistant instead.



Q: Can MacUpdater help me to reinstall an app?

A:

MacUpdater 3 can reinstall your apps. To do so, select an app in MacUpdater's main window and holding down the 'Alt/Option' key while opening the 'File' menu. This will change the "Update Selected App" menu item to "Reinstall Selected App". Note that normally reinstalling an app will in most cases not have any effect as you'll be replacing one app with a bit-for-bit identical freshly-downloaded copy. There are mainly two cases where this can be useful:
• when you have moved to an 'Apple Silicon'-based Mac and want to replace an app that has been downloaded in its Intel-variant with the 'Apple Silicon'-native version
• when an app that requires installation refuses to launch because the installation is damaged or incomplete, e.g. after copying apps to a new Mac



Q: Why do some apps not show up in MacUpdater?

A:

NOTE: if you've just installed an app, it will not show up in MacUpdater immediately! It will only show up after the next scan has been performed. Newly installed apps should be up-to-date anyway but if you can't wait until the next daily scan to see the new app show up in MacUpdater, you can always just drag&drop it onto MacUpdater's list to have it added right now. If the app in question is not newly installed but still not showing up, please keep reading below:
All of your applications should show up in MacUpdater, however, there are a few reasons why apps can be ignored so that they don't show up in MacUpdater:
• we hide all apps that are built into the operating system by Apple
• we hide all apps that are auxiliary apps to other apps like helper apps, installers, uninstallers, launchers, etc (if you find one of those still being displayed, just let us know)
• additionally, only the 'Scanned Folders' are scanned for apps. if some of your apps are installed outside your applications folders ('/Applications/' and '~/Applications/'), please add those folders to be scanned
• some apps are ignored because they use a 'template' or empty 'bundle identifier' that the developer has forgotten to customize for his app, making the app indistinguishable from other apps. this usually is only the case for unpopular apps from inexperienced developers.
• some apps are also ignored because they contain no version information at all that could be used for comparison. this is usually only the case for unpopular apps from inexperienced developers.
• we also hide several apps that aren't real apps anyway and don't contain any useful version information, e.g. Chrome apps, Winebottler apps, Wineskin apps, Parallels apps, VMWare apps, Fluid apps, Epichrome apps
• we also hide apps installed by 'Setapp', those should be updated with 'Setapp'
• we also hide some apps that we classify as Malware, Adware, or Spyware, see here
• some apps have to be ignored because comparing version numbers does not make sense there. some apps exist in different versions for different hardware, so using the latest version might actually be impossible. for example, some apps from printer or scanner manufacturers are tied to specific hardware. the 'Brother Control Center' and 'HP Printer Utility' need to be excluded for this reason.

If you want to find out why a particular app does not show up in MacUpdater, you can drag the app onto MacUpdater's main window to get an explanation.
Also, you can have a look at all the ignored apps that MacUpdater does not list by clicking on the 'ignored' link in the lower-left of the main window.



Q: Does MacUpdater support setting custom homepages for my apps?

A:

Yes: In nearly all cases, customizing the stored homepage for your apps would not be useful. If MacUpdater does not know the homepage for a particular app, you can just let us know and we will add it. However, in some rare cases an app may either have multiple homepages or you may wish to set the homepage to the particular store where you bought the software to speed up updating the software. If you set the 'Finder Comment' for a particular software (either in the Finder itself or in MacUpdaters App-Info-Window), to the homepage (starting with 'https://' !) then:
• The clickable homepage link will show up in MacUpdaters Manual-Update dialoge (shown in response to clicking "Manual Update") and
• Selecting the "File > Update By > Opening the Homepage…" menu-item will open your custom homepage!



Q: Does MacUpdater support selecting custom updater apps?

A:

Yes: In nearly cases, customizing the updater app for your apps would not be useful. If MacUpdater really does not support updating one of your apps natively and does not support launching the vendor-specific updater app either, you can just let us know and we will add support for it. However, in some rare cases it is possible to buy the same software from different stores with different accompanying updater-apps. This occurs mostly for audio-plugins. If you set the 'Finder Comment' for a particular software (either in the Finder itself or in MacUpdaters App-Info-Window), to the updater-app (starting with 'file:///' !) then:
• The clickable link to launch the updater will show up in MacUpdaters Manual-Update dialoge (shown in response to clicking "Manual Update") and
• Selecting the "File > Update By > Launching Updater App…" menu-item will open the custom updater!





Q: What if an app shows as 'outdated' only in MacUpdater but not in the 'Mac App Store' or vice versa?

A:

Both the 'Mac App Store' as well as MacUpdater scan once per day, by default. However, normally they will never scan at exactly the same time - except when this happens by coincidence. Consequently, there will always be cases where an update shows up in either the Mac App Store but not in MacUpdater - or the other way round. This just means that the update has been released in-between both scans and is not a problem that we can fix or that should be reported to us. Also note that that the information about Mac App Store apps comes directly from Apple and is known to be inaccurate or delayed from time to time. We've reported the problems to Apple and there is nothing more that we can do about this. MacUpdater already takes great care to always ask the Mac App Store of your local country for information to minimize potential differences in the display of outdated apps between MacUpdater and the Mac App Store.

We recommend using MacUpdater with the 'Hide Mac App Store' filter-setting, which is the default. There is usually no need to display Mac App Store apps as those are reliably tracked and updated by the Mac App Store anyway - no need to track them twice. However, we recommend temporarily switching to 'Show all apps' every few weeks because MacUpdater has one unique feature that the Mac App Store does not have: it can show you 'major' updates for paid apps, which have been uploaded as a 'different app' on the Mac App Store but really are a new version of the same app in reality. Many vendors upload new versions of their apps into the Mac App Store as 'separate apps' to circumvent Apple's rules about paid updates. The Mac App Store cannot identify these paid upgrades but MacUpdater is able to do so.

Because tracking updates for 'Mac App Store' apps has to rely on notoriously low-quality data provided by Apple, we do not consider it a supported feature of MacUpdater. We provide tracking of Mac App Store apps as a courtesy for users that are interested in such a feature but we do not consider tracking those apps twice as useful and offer this only as a unsupported best-effort feature.



Q: Can MacUpdater hide (Paid) Upgrades or stick to an older major-version of an app?

A:

MacUpdater should always distinguish between minor updates and major or paid upgrades (see here). If you do not want to perform a paid upgrade, there are several options:
• You can select a custom filter to hide all paid upgrades from MacUpdater (by clicking on "Custom…" in the filter popup menu and tmarking "Hide apps that have a major upgrade available")
• You can use the 'Ignore this App' or 'Ignore this Update' functions in MacUpdater on any app that you do not want to use in the latest version. The difference between these functions is that 'Ignore this App' will completely remove the app from MacUpdater's list while 'Ignore this Update' will keep the app displayed in MacUpdater and will notify when an even newer version of the app is published.
• New in MacUpdater 3: if an app vendor supports multiple different major versions of an app, MacUpdater 3 allows you to select which version you want to track. For example you can select that you want to stick to version 4.x of 'Alfred', instead of upgrading to Alfred 5.x. Since only a handful of vendors support multiple major versions of their app at the same time, this function is only available for a few apps. For any app that does only receive updates to the latest version, you can just choose 'Ignore this App' if you do not want to upgrade, because there won't be any updates for older major versions anyway! You can see a list of apps where you can select which branch to track here.

Note on ignoring apps: we recommend resetting the ignore-list every few months to re-evaluate whether you want to upgrade these apps or continue using an old version. MacUpdater can automatically remind you on a periodic basis.



Q: Why can I not re-scan as often as I want?

A:

There is currently only one restriction: you can't start more than 4 manual scans in 24 hours (this applies to the standard version, the limit for the 'free' version may be lower and higher for the 'pro' version).
This is not a restriction that is meant to impede any of our users, but basically exists for three reasons:
1.) actually there shouldn't be a reason to re-scan manually at all and there certainly can't be any valid reason to re-scan that often.
2.) it is unfair if some people bombard our server by unnecessary starting manual scans every few minutes only to degrade the service for other customers which stick to the normal daily scan.
3.) it is actually not a good idea to fetch each update at the very second that it is released. developers make mistakes and sometimes updates contain bugs and are retraced soon after release. If you re-scan every hour, you increase your risk of applying a bad update. If you stick to a normal scan interval you minimize your risk.

The 'Launch a full manual re-scan' button exists more or less for historical reasons (and will probably be removed in future versions), and there shouldn't much need to actually use it.
There are far better and more convenient alternatives to ever launching a full scan manually, please continue reading the question below. If you still think a higher scan limit would be useful to you after reading the next question, just drop us a line and we will find a solution.



Q: What are the alternatives to a 'full scan'?

A:

MacUpdater works best if you just let it run in the background and check for new apps every day and there should be little reason to ever start an additional scan. And if you like to launch MacUpdater on-demand, it also launches a scan for you automatically (if not, have a look at lowering the 'Overdue Scan Threshold').
Let's examine each reason why you could think that you want to launch a manual rescan:
• You've uninstalled an app from your Mac and want it to no longer show up in MacUpdater. You can either wait until the next daily scan but if you want it to be removed right now just re-scan this app and it will be removed. In any case, there is no need to launch a full scan.
• You've installed a new app on your Mac and want it to show up in MacUpdater. You can either wait until the next daily scan since there is no need for it to show up immediately since a new download will obviously not be outdated. You can also add the app to MacUpdater immediately by dragging it onto the list via Drag&Drop. In any case, there is no need to launch a full scan.
• Apps that are updated outside MacUpdater often aren't 'scanned' until the next full scan. However, if you update apps manually or through the MacAppStore, MacUpdater will automatically know about this if you click the corresponding button in MacUpdater ("Manual Update" or "Open AppStore") before performing the update. If you did not click the button beforehand or the automatic re-scan did not work, you can just re-scan this particular app for its information to be updated if you do not want to wait until the next scan. Also, you can right-click on the 'full re-scan' button to open a menu to re-scan only apps that are 'outdated' or have been updated outside of MacUpdater! In any case, there is no need to launch a full scan.

Future versions of MacUpdater are planned to get rid of the 'Launch manual re-scan' button completely and track installations, uninstallations, and updates done outside MacUpdater fully automatically.



Q: What happens when applying an update and the new version of the app has a new name?

A:

Although it is undesirable, some apps change their name in the filesystem between versions (e.g. from "SuperApp 2017" to "SuperApp Plus 2018").
However, it is technically impossible to determine whether the new version of an app has really been renamed, or whether you've just previously renamed the app in the Finder yourself.
There are two possible behaviors that MacUpdater could apply:
• Always keep the old application name and update the app in-place when downloading and installing an update. This is beneficial if you've renamed the app yourself, as MacUpdater will keep your custom name. The downside is, if the app has really changed its name, the new name will be discarded, which may be confusing if the app still has the old name but the new version.
• Always use the new application name when downloading and installing an update. The upside here would be that apps that have been re-named always have their 'right' name after an update. The downside would be that if you rename apps yourself, this would always be discarded when MacUpdater applies any update.

There is a third option: keep the old name for 'minor updates', use the new app-name for all 'major upgrades' - as those are most likely to really change the app name. This is the default option for MacUpdater. If you prefer one of the other two options, you can configure MacUpdater to do so in its settings.
Also, note that MacUpdater sends a 'notification' if an app has been renamed so that you can verify if this is intended or re-name the app back if you want.

Note that all of this only applies to updates that MacUpdater can perform fully automatically. If an update contains an installer, MacUpdater just launches the installer for you and has no influence on what the installer will do.



Q: Why doesn't MacUpdater have a menu bar or show up in the ⌘-Tab app switcher?

A:

You have manually disabled the display of MacUpdater's dock icon. Without the Dock icon there can be no menu bar, this is a fundamental principle of macOS apps. Just re-enable the Dock icon:
• if you want a Dock icon for MacUpdater only when it is opened: select the 'Show Dock icon additionally' option in "Settings" => "General Settings"
• if you want a Dock icon for MacUpdater whenever it is running: change the 'App Icon Display' option to one of the settings that include the Dock



Q: Why do I need to launch MacUpdater twice to see its window?

A:

There are two ways to use MacUpdater. 1.) leave it running in the background all the time (recommended) or 2.) launch it yourself on-demand whenever you want.
In the 'background mode', MacUpdater will not open its window on the first launch, because it will be launched when you boot your Mac, and showing MacUpdater when your Mac is booted would be undesired and inconvenient.
So it seems that you have told MacUpdater that you want to use it in 'background mode' (where the window will not be opened on the first launch) but you actually want to use it 'on-demand mode' (you have launched it manually).
To make MacUpdater open its window directly after being launched, just switch it to 'on-demand mode' by de-selecting the 'Launch at Login' option and changing the 'App-Icon Display' to either 'Dock' or 'Dock and Menubar' in the 'General Settings'. Additionally, you might want to lower your 'Overdue scan threshold' in the 'Scanning' preferences to make MacUpdater scan automatically after being launched.



Q: The 'Current Version' that MacUpdater displays for an app does not seem to be correct. Why?

A:

The 'Current Version' that MacUpdater displays for installed apps, is always correct - there was no single wrong detection of a wrong app-version since MacUpdater has been released. However, there are a few things to consider here:
MacUpdater will always read the 'real' version number of an app. This is the version number that is embedded into every app and is also displayed in the macOS Finder when selecting an app and/or using 'Get Info' or 'QuickLook' on the app. (In technical terms: MacUpdater looks at the 'CFBundleVersion' and 'CFBundleShortVersionString' entries in the 'Info.plist' file embedded into the app.) This is also the version number that macOS itself uses when dealing with the app, e.g. when multiple versions are installed to determine which version of the app to open when double-clicking files created by this app.
While MacUpdater displays the real version number of an app, some apps display a different version number e.g. on their website or when looking at the version information in the running app itself. However, there is no technical relevance to these fake version numbers, as vendors can just display anything on their website or inside their app. Some app vendors ship their apps with broken or missing version information but display proper version numbers in their apps. Other app vendors ship their apps with correct version information but have a broken auto-update-mechanism that will not update the real version number of the app as displayed in the Finder or in MacUpdater. Both cases are quite rare and mostly affect unpopular apps from inexperienced developers or apps ported from other platforms with little attention to detail. In both of these cases, please complain to the app vendor to fix the version information embedded into the app and displayed in the Finder and it will automatically be supported by MacUpdater.
Note that we have support to fix broken or missing version information for apps and have implemented this for some apps (Teamspeak, Steinberg eLicenser, Norton Security, ...) and could implement this for other broken apps if there is enough demand and it is technically possible. However, contacting the vendor to fix his mistake properly should always be the preferred option first.



Q: The 'Release Date' that MacUpdater displays for an app does not seem to be correct. Why?

A:

It's not possible for MacUpdater to know the exact date a piece of software was released. It is possible to get a good estimate based on the modification date of its binary, its code signing date, its release date on the Mac App Store, its Sparkle feed information, and a myriad of other tricks. But none of those is guaranteed to be reliable, which explains why you may find discrepancies in dates even when “Installed Version” and “Newest Version” are the same. All we can gather are approximations, so we consider release dates to be a nice-to-have feature, not something to take as certain.



Q: Where can I download and how can I use the command-line version of MacUpdater?

A:

The 'Pro' and 'Business' versions of MacUpdater allow access to a 'command-line version' of MacUpdater that can be used from the 'Terminal'. This is not a separate download, but directly included within MacUpdater. Currently this tool does not work standalone, but depends on an existing and running version of MacUpdater. It basically acts as a convenient remote-control for MacUpdater. More information can be found on our Bussiness Page.



Q: How can I prevent information about self-made or company-internal apps from being sent to the Database?

A:

To allow MacUpdater to find out the latest version of all Mac apps, we need to collect information about the version numbers of Mac apps. Without this data, MacUpdater would not be able to function. Note that the upload of version-numbers to our database happens anonymously: the transferred data does not contain any private data and does not track your usage - it only contains information about apps like their version numbers. The collected version numbers are used to enable MacUpdater's main function of displaying correct 'Latest Versions' and are also used to power the website macupdater.net. If you have apps that you've developed yourself or are internal to your company, you may want to make sure that their information is not sent to our server. Please take any of the following precautions to make sure that information about these apps is never transmitted by MacUpdater:
1.) the easiest way to prevent MacUpdater from scanning an app is by not placing it in the /Applications folder at all (or any other folder you may have added to MacUpdater's "Scan Folders" manually)
2.) if you need to add your company-internal apps to the /Applications folder, you could also place them in a subfolder of the /Applications folder, and ignore this subfolder in MacUpdater's "Exclude Folders"
3.) you can also ignore apps in MacUpdater one by one. Information about ignored apps is never sent to our Database
4.) MacUpdater will always ignore alls apps that have a 'Bundle Identifier' starting with 'com.internal.'.
5.) MacUpdater will always ignore alls apps that have an entry of 'SensitiveCompanyInternalApp' set to the boolean value 'TRUE' in their Info.plist

Note, for the second and third options, you'll probably need to take action even before launching MacUpdater for the first time as transmission to the database may happen during the very first scan before you were able to ignore anything. To prevent that you can make sure MacUpdater ignores a folder or app with the following Terminal command before launching MacUpdater for the first time:
IGNORE A FOLDER: defaults write com.corecode.MacUpdater IgnoreFolders -array-add /Path/to/folder
IGNORE AN APP : defaults write com.corecode.MacUpdater IgnoreApps -array-add /Path/to/app

If none of these options is good enough for your or your company, please contact us and we will find a solution for you. Also note, if you know (or suspect) that MacUpdater already has added your company internal app to its database, you can just send us an e-mail with the bundle identifiers of those apps and we will delete them from our database and website right away.

If you want to use MacUpdater to track (& update) your company-internal apps, but do not want any information about these apps becoming public, just get in touch with us, we can help you there.



Q: MacUpdater has told me one of my apps is malware/spyware/adware and won't be tracked. Can you re-add support for that app?

A:

No! We have a zero-tolerance policy on any software that might harm our users. This includes anything that fulfills the definition of malware, spyware or adware, even if it comes from well-known vendors.
If you want to use any of those 'apps' please do so, however, we will not endorse this software by displaying them inside MacUpdater and harm our users by helping them update to newer, potentially even more dangerous versions of that software.
Furthermore, we will silently ignore any apps from any company or vendor that is known to have distributed at least one malware, spyware, or adware program. You can view all apps ignored by MacUpdater with the built-in 'ignored apps viewer'.
Note that even if a company has supposedly stopped distributing harmful software, we will not immediately re-add their apps to MacUpdater. Building trust after such an incident takes time, therefore we will wait for a period of exactly 2 years and only re-add the apps if the company has stopped doing anything malicious for 2 years.

NOTE: MacUpdater is NOT a virus scanner and not a replacement for a security solution. While MacUpdater might warn you about some common threats (if any only if they come in form of an 'app'), this is not something that we guarantee to do with any accuracy or completeness. We recommend updating only software from vendors you trust, as this happens at your own risk.



Q: What are your terms-of-service?

A:

Our terms-of-service are simple and boil down to do-not-trick-us and do-not-hurt-us. You are allowed to use MacUpdater in any normal way according to the limitations governing your license. You are not allowed to:

Furthermore you may not damage our version-number-database by:
If any of the above limitations are violated, we reserve the right to take countermeasures including refunding your purchase and/or blocking you from using MacUpdater permanently. If you are unsure about any of the above, don't worry: any normal usage of MacUpdater is completely fine.



Q: What about security? Where does MacUpdater download updates from?

A:

We always download updates directly from the vendor of the application. Many app-vendors nowadays host their apps in the cloud, but we always use the URLs that are used:
• either when downloading the app directly from their official homepage
• or when downloading an update with the built-in “check for updates” function (if available)
(most often, but not always, these two should be the same).

You can easily verify this because during each download you see the URL that is being used. And you can even have a look at the URL beforehand by clicking the info-button next to the 'Update App' button.

Since the original download URLs from the application vendor are used, the security of using MacUpdater is the same as when downloading directly from the homepage or when using a 'Check for Updates…' function in an app. Actually, the security is even better because when a domain of an application vendor goes offline, we remove the corresponding downloads and will not re-add them without scrutiny. Additionally, we compare the 'code signatures' of the 1000 most popular apps with the official code-signatures from the vendors and will block any update that has a unexpected signature.

If you need even more protection, MacUpdater 2 includes a plethora of additional security-related options.



Q: Can I update OEM software with MacUpdater?

A:

OEM software (re-branded software that is originally from another vendor) is quite rare on the Mac.
If you have any of those installed, we'd recommend using 'Ignore this App' on those apps.
While we've added special support for some OEM apps, we can not exclude the possibility that some of these OEM apps may have problems:
If an OEM software is
a.) indistinguishable from the 'real' version and
b.) due to OEM license you are not eligible to actually update to the latest 'real' version
then you should not use MacUpdater to update to the latest version because this could potentially overwrite your OEM software with the original software.



Q: Why are some apps from the 'Mac App Store' not hidden when I select 'Hide Mac App Store apps'?

A:

There are two cases where MacUpdater will not consider an app to be of the 'MacAppStore-type', even when you've downloaded it from the 'Mac App Store' and consequently not hide it when you select 'Hide Mac App Store apps' from the filter menu:
• if the app is now not available from the Mac App Store anymore (in your country)
• if the latest version of the app is now available only outside of the 'Mac App Store'



Q: What will 'MacUpdater' show as the 'Latest Version'? What about upgrades, name-changes, etc?

A:

MacUpdater will always display the 'newest officially released stable version' that will run on your macOS version for any app. Our definition of 'latest official version' is: the newest version that you can get either by the official download from the homepage or by using an auto-update mechanism built into the app. This is an easy and simple definition for most apps but can get quite complicated for some apps.
Even if an app changes its name, or is sold by another company now, MacUpdater should always display the absolute latest official version of that app. Furthermore, even if an app is discontinued but replaced with an 'official successor' app, MacUpdater will try to display this successor app as the latest version. Note that MacUpdater will try to explain the situation regarding any offered app-upgrades when you click the info button next to an app. This button is highlighted in red for important or 'complicated' upgrade situations.
Sometimes a developer will decide to restart the version number of his app at 1.0, which can lead to the case where the newest version number being offered for an update by MacUpdater will actually be lower than your current version number. However, all of those cases have been manually verified and deliberately enabled by us, so if you see a lower version number offered for an update, this is not a 'wrong information' but should always be correct.
While some developers support multiple versions of the 'same' app, 99% of developers only provide updates for a single latest version of their app that is offered for download or sale. Therefore MacUpdater is currently also based on the concept of a single, latest version number for any app. Future versions of MacUpdater may provide support for multiple 'latest' versions per app.
Note that some upgrading from your current version to the latest version of some apps may cost money, but MacUpdater will try to mark these as 'Upgrades' instead of 'Updates', see 'Paid Upgrades' below.
If MacUpdater shows you an upgrade that you do not want to take at the moment for some reason (e.g. cost of the upgrade), just select 'Ignore App' to completely ignore this app and hide it from MacUpdater or 'Ignore Update' to just ignore this particular update to the app. It is probably best to erase your ignored-app list (in the Settings-tab) from time to time to re-evaluate the latest versions of your apps.
Also, note that 'Beta Versions should always be hidden from MacUpdater, please see the question about 'Beta Versions' below.



Q: Will updates to 'Beta'-versions show up in MacUpdater?

A:

Beta Versions should always be hidden from MacUpdater. With 'Beta' we mean any version that is not officially released as a normal and stable version, e.g. alpha-, beta-, rc- and development-versions and 'snapshots'. There are three exceptions: First, some apps don't have a stable release yet. Second, for some apps, even the developer recommends downloading the beta version because it works so much better than any previous 'stable' release (e.g. 'TextMate', 'Fugu', or 'BatChmod'). The third exception is apps that by their very definition only provide beta versions, e.g. Google's Chrome 'Dev' or 'Chromium' versions. Apart from these exceptions, if you see a beta-version being offered as an update in 'MacUpdater' please let us know through the built-in 'Report App Feedback' dialog so that we can remove it.
Also, note that MacUpdater will never ask you to downgrade. So, if you have a beta version installed that is newer than the latest released version, you'll see the 'Latest Version' listed in green and no update will be offered (because it would actually be a 'downgrade').
We are planning an option to enable optional tracking of 'beta' versions but this will only be possible for some apps, and remain a non-default option.



Q: Can MacUpdater make Backups of old apps before updating them or Backups of the new app-downloads?

A:

Yes, you can configure MacUpdater to 1.) make backups of an old app before updating it and/or 2.) make backups of downloaded installation files for your new apps. Both can be configured in the Settings. You can enter how many backups to keep. This is the total number of backups and not per-app. (configurable either per-app or in-total). You can also change the location of the backups, by default they are stored in ~/Library/Application Support/MacUpdater/.



Q: What kinds of non-app software does MacUpdater support?

A:

Apart from normal applications MacUpdater 3 can also track some other, non-app software types like screen-savers, drivers, preference-panes, plugins and many more. Support for tracking Audio-plugins and other media-production related plugins is only available to customers of the 'Pro' version of MacUpdater, all other software types are available to all MacUpdater users starting with version 3.0: :

NAME FOLDER
Screen Saver Screen Savers
Metadata (MD) / Spotlight Importer Spotlight
Preference Pane PrefPanes
ColorPicker ColorPickers
QuickLook Plugin QuickLook
Filesystem Driver Filesystems
InputMethod Input Methods
Service Services
Internet Plugin Internet Plug-Ins
Mail Bundle Mail/Bundles
Keyboard Layout Keyboard Layouts
Dictionary Dictionaries
Kernel Extension (KEXT) Extensions
Script Scripts, iTunes/Scripts, Music/Scripts, Apple TV/Scripts, Apple TV/Music Only Scripts
Java Virtual Machine Java/JavaVirtualMachines
All plugins listed below are Restricted to 'Pro' edition customers:
CoreMedia IO Plugin CoreMediaIO/Plug-Ins
FxPlug Plugin Plug-ins/FxPlug
AudioUnit Plugin Audio/Plug-Ins/Components
VST Plugin Audio/Plug-Ins/VST, Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3
CLAP Plugin Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP
HAL Plugin Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL
MIDI Driver Audio/MIDI Drivers
AAX Plugin ~/Application Support/Avid/Audio/Plug-Ins
Aperture Plugin ~/Application Support/Aperture/Plug-Ins
Adobe Plugin ~/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CC


Q: Will MacUpdater upgrade paid apps to new major versions that may have an upgrade-fee?

A:

MacUpdater will always display the newest released version for any app. For many paid apps, upgrading to the latest version may cost money if your license does not cover the upgrade. It's quite difficult and in some cases impossible to automatically detect whether you are entitled to a free update. Currently MacUpdater flags updates as 'upgrades that might cost money' if the app is not known to be free, and the major version changed between the installed and the offered version. If MacUpdater detects this for an app, it will label the 'Update' button with 'Upgrade' instead and ask for confirmation before updating. For apps with time-based licenses or when an app charges money even for minor releases, you need to be careful yourself about installing updates.



Q: Will MacUpdater offer or install updates that do not run on my macOS version?

A:

MacUpdater has several mechanisms in place so that it will not actually show the newest version of an app, but the newest version that runs on your macOS version. In addition to not displaying versions that won't run on your Mac, MacUpdater also won't update apps to versions that are incompatible with your macOS version. That said, these mechanisms can fail e.g. when the developer of an app makes a mistake. If you ever find that MacUpdater displays or updates an app version that is not compatible with your macOS version, please let us know and we will fix this immediately.



Q: The latest version of an app has a bug. Will you remove it from MacUpdater?

A:

No, we will not remove any software from display in MacUpdater, just because it contains bugs or you are not happy with its quality. We have strict guidelines to always display the latest official version of apps in MacUpdater, see here.
We can and will not perform quality assurance for more than 100.000 Mac apps - that is the job of the software vendors. Our job is to display the latest versions of those apps.
If you find a bug in the latest version of an app, please report it directly to the vendor of this app instead. If the vendor removes the faulty version ('pulls the release') then MacUpdater will also stop showing this version.

Also, as always, you can use the 'Ignore this Update' function in MacUpdater to hide any update that you do not want to install.



Q: Why does MacUpdater now need 'full disk access'?

A:

MacUpdater can be used without granting 'full disk access' permissions if you don't want to install its 'priviledged helper tool', which is designed to allow MacUpdater to always work without having to enter your password. If you only have a single user account on your Mac, this account is an 'Admin account' and you don't have any apps that come with updates delivered as packages (.PKG) or don't mind entering your password sometimes, then using MacUpdater without the helper is a fine choice.
Now why does installing the helper now (starting with v2.3) also require 'full disk permissions' for both MacUpdater and its helper? Although the 'Applications' folder is not a protected location that is suddenly accessible when having 'FDA', these permissions are required under a number of circumstances to prevent update errors:

In summary, 'full disk access' is required for a 100% reliable operation. If you don't want to grant 'full disk access', then you should also refrain from installing MacUpdater's helper, which is also designed to give elevated permissions. However, if you are in a situation where you absolutely require MacUpdater's helper, but cannot grant 'full disk access' because it is not possible to do this in an automated fashion (e.g. enterprise deployments), then you can activate a special option that will allow to use the helper even when it does not have those priviledges. To do so please enter this command:
defaults write com.corecode.MacUpdater HiddenOptionDontRequireFullDiskAccessForHelper -bool YES
However, please note that this option is NOT RECOMMENDED and your copy of MacUpdater will be UNSUPPORTED.



Q: Can I use or automate MacUpdater using 'Alfred' or from the command-line?

A:

Yes! We try to make task automation using MacUpdater as convenient as possible. You can use the official custom 'Alfred' workflow or have a look at the included command-line client 'macupdater_client'. All those facilities require the 'Pro' version of MacUpdater.



Q: I receive a message about a 'Quarantine' when launching MacUpdater. Why? How can I fix this?

A:

The 'Quarantine' is a relatively recent macOS security feature that applies to every single app. Basically, each downloaded file is placed into 'Quarantine', which disallows it from doing certain things (like updating itself). Normally the 'Quarantine' is removed by the Finder when you move a downloaded app from your Downloads folder to the /Applications folder automatically. So, if you haven't moved MacUpdater to your /Applications folder, please try this first to remove the 'Quarantine'. If you already have MacUpdater in your /Applications and you still see this message, the Finder must have failed to remove the 'Quarantine'. In this case, we'd recommend trying to move MacUpdater to some other folder and back to the /Applications folder again. If this still did not work you will need to remove the 'Quarantine' manually. There are half a million Google hits for Mac Remove Quarantine.
To make the process of removing the 'Quarantine' comfortable, we have developed an application called 'Unquarantine' which you can download here, just drag 'MacUpdater' onto it and click 'Remove Quarantine'.
If our app did not work for you, please try the normal, uncomfortable solution to remove the 'Quarantine' by entering this into the 'Terminal':
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/MacUpdater.app

Note that apps should never be moved while they are running. Please quit MacUpdater before moving it with the Finder or before trying to remove the 'Quarantine' on it manually.
Also, note that there is no technical restriction in MacUpdater that requires it to be run from the /Applications folder. You can run it from any folder you wish, but it may be more difficult for you to get the 'Quarantine' removed in this case.



Q: MacUpdater doesn't seem to work due to internet connection problems. What can I do?

A:

MacUpdater needs a fully functioning and reliable internet connection to find updates for your apps. If MacUpdater doesn't seem to work properly please perform a connection-check from the MacUpdater menu. If any of the checks comes up red, MacUpdater won't be able to work perfectly. In this case please check these possible issues:

• whether you have installed something that is blocking MacUpdater's network connections. Please make sure that any products like 'Little Snitch', 'Norton Internet Security', 'Intego NetBarrier' 'Hands Off', 'Vallum', ‘WatchGuard', 'Mobicip', 'Astaro Web Gateway', 'Zscaler' or any other outgoing firewalls you may have installed are configured not to interfere with MacUpdater. The aforementioned list is not complete - these days nearly all 'security' products contain such an outgoing firewall.
• whether you are behind a corporate VPN or firewall which may be blocking the connections.
• whether you are using a DNS server that blocks our domains most notably macupdater.net, macupdater-backend.com and corecode.io
• also MacUpdater uses SSL certificate pinning to check that the connection to its server has not been tampered with. If you use any tools that do 'SSL Introspection' or anything else that modifies network connections you'll need to configure it not to mess with MacUpdater's connections. A sure sign that this is the problem would be if only the connections to macupdater-backend.com and macupdater.net fail, while the other connections are fine.



Q: Why does the menubar sometimes become unclickable?

A:

This is a known macOS bug which affects apps that can have no Dock icon. Switching to another app and back typically fixes the issue. Apple is aware of the problem (Radar 56986229 and Feedback 7433281)



Q: Why isn't MacUpdater launching at startup?

A:

If MacUpdater isn't launching at login although you have activated the option under Settings → General Settings → Launch at Login, check if you have more than one copy installed. There should be a single copy installed on your Mac and all external disks, otherwise Apple’s API for starting it at login can get confused. We also recommend excluding MacUpdater from Apple's TimeMachine backup due to this.

Alternatively, you can disable MacUpdater's 'Launch at Login' option and add it manually under System Preferences → Users & Groups → Login Items.



Q: MacUpdater launches in a language that I don't understand. Why? How can I fix this?

A:

MacUpdater is available in English and 7 other languages ( 🇪🇸 / 🇷🇺 / 🇧🇷 / 🇳🇱 / 🇩🇪 / 🇫🇷 / 🇨🇳 ).
MacUpdater, like all other Mac apps, is automatically launched by the system in the available language that you prefer, according to your system settings. If MacUpdater is not available in your native language, it will be launched in the 'next best language' according to your system settings.

If MacUpdater launches in a language that you don't know or want, but you'd rather see it in English (or any other of the 6 available languages) please do the following:
• Open "System Preferences"
• Go to the 'Language & Region' preferences
• Now edit your language preference list to make sure that 'English' is higher up in the list than the language that MacUpdater is currently launching in

This will make MacUpdater (and any other app that does not have a translation into your native language) appear in English, as you prefer. You'll need to re-launch MacUpdater for this change to take effect.



Q: Will MacUpdater be offered for purchase on the Mac App Store?

A:

No, it is impossible to offer MacUpdater in the Mac App Store, since Apple only allows applications there that are severely limited in their functionality, i.e. that run in a "sandbox". These limitations are OK for most normal document-editing applications but its technically impossible to make an application like MacUpdater that can operate with these restrictions. So, unless Apple changes its mind about these restrictions, MacUpdater will never appear in the Mac App Store.
Note that we have offered a 'Lite' version of MacUpdater which only scans for updates but cannot update apps for inclusion into the Mac App Store. Although this version was fully compliant which every single one of Apple's rules, they still refused to add it.



Q: Can I upgrade a 'Standard' license to a 'Pro' license?

A:

Thanks for your interest in MacUpdater Pro! Yes you can upgrade your standard license to 'Pro' just fine - and you'll pay exactly the same whether you purchase a 'Pro' license directly, compared to buying a standard license first, and upgrading later on.

To upgrade to 'Pro' just select 'Upgrade to MacUpdater Pro' from the 'Help' menu. Alternatively you can try enabling any of the 'Pro' features like non-app-software scanning and should be prompted to upgrade your license.



Q: How can I purchase a MacUpdater license for a friend?

A:

If you want to buy a license for an other person just follow this link.

In case you want to use 'Apple Pay', please use this link instead.

In case you want to use 'PayPal' or live in a country that requires us to file VAT [1], please use this link instead.

[1]: AE, AL, AO, BH, BY, CL, CO, CR, DZ, EC, IN, KE, KR, MD, MX, RS, RU, SA, UG, VN, CH, TJ, GE, MT



Q: What can I expect after purchase? What is your refund policy?

A:

If you have purchases software before, you'll have low expectations. The software is full of bugs and the tech support is slow, incompetent, unreachable, or just plain unavailable. And if you want your precious money back this is usually cumbersome and often impossible. Purchasing MacUpdater will be different. While we urge every interested customer to try the free version before considering a purchase, there are a few promises we can definitely make. Our customer support responds fast and will actually try to help you. If there are technical problems we can usually resolve them on the same day. We'll try everything we can to make MacUpdater the software purchase you feel best about. If despite our best efforts you are still unhappy (sadly it is impossible to please everyone), we will always and immediately give you your money back within 90 days of your purchase. Even requests that are longer ago are granted most of the time unless we think you try to take advantage of us. So, feel free to expect more from us!



Q: How will I receive my license and receipt after purchase?

A:

After purchasing MacUpdater you will receive two e-mails. The first e-mail named 'Your CoreCode Limited receipt' from @stripe.com is your purchase receipt. The second e-mail named 'Your MacUpdater 3 Purchase and License' from purchase@corecode.io contains your license-code used to 'activate' the full feature set of MacUpdater. If you have not received any of these e-mails a few minutes after purchase, please look into your 'Spam' folder.
Regarding activating MacUpdater, this will usually happen fully automatically after you have finished the purchase process. If the purchase process did take more than 15 minutes or you've terminated MacUpdater before finishing the purchase, you may need to activate your license simply by clicking on the received license-code link which is visible both in the received e-mail as well as on the 'Purchase Success' website which you've been redirected to in your web browser after a successful payment. If clicking on that link does not activate MacUpdater, you can always activate it manually as explained here.



Q: How will I receive my license and receipt after purchase? (FastSpring)

A:

After purchasing MacUpdater you will receive two e-mails. The first e-mail named '...here is your receipt for the order ' from 'FastSpring Checkout ' is your purchase receipt. The second e-mail named 'Your MacUpdater 3 Purchase and License' from purchase@corecode.io contains your license-code used to 'activate' the full feature set of MacUpdater. If you have not received any of these e-mails a few minutes after purchase, please look into your 'Spam' folder.
Regarding activating MacUpdater, this will usually happen fully automatically after you have finished the purchase process. If the purchase process did take more than 15 minutes or you've terminated MacUpdater before finishing the purchase, you may need to activate your license simply by clicking on the received license-code link which is visible both in the received e-mail as well as on the 'Purchase Success' website which you've been redirected to in your web browser after a successful payment. If clicking on that link does not activate MacUpdater, you can always activate it manually as explained here.



Q: How can I find out my license-code?

A:

Your license-code was displayed in your web-browser after purchase and was sent to you by e-mail, see here.
If you have deleted the e-mail with your license-code (or have entered a wrong e-mail address during purchase) you can still easily find out your license-code.
Just open any registered copy of MacUpdater and:
• Go to the 'Documentation' tab in MacUpdater's main window and
• Click the 'Show Details' button

If you do not have access to any of your registered copies of MacUpdater anymore, we can help you.



Q: On how many Macs can I use MacUpdater?

A:

If you bought MacUpdater you can use it concurrently on 4 Macs you use personally if you have a 'Standard' license and on '7' Macs in your household if you have a 'Pro' license.
If you move to a new Mac always make sure to 'deactivate' MacUpdater on the old Mac from the 'Documentation' window so it won't continue to consume one allowed activation.
NOTE: while a 'standard' license for MacUpdater can be used on up to 4 Macs for your convenience, it can only be used by one person. A 'Pro' license can be used by all family members in your household.
IMPORTANT: if you did forget to 'deactivate' MacUpdater while moving to a new Mac, and are unable to activate MacUpdater on a new Mac because you've used up all concurrent activations, please use the 'Contact Support' button in the app to receive help or



Q: How can I activate MacUpdater on another Mac?

A:

You can just click on the license-code link in the e-mail named 'Your MacUpdater 3 Purchase and License' which you've received from purchase@corecode.io after payment.
If the automatic activation link does not work or you do not have access to that e-mail on the Mac where you want to activate MacUpdater then you can always activate it manually:
• select MacUpdater's 'Documentation' tab
• click the 'Activate License' button.
• enter your license details (use copy and paste!) and confirm by clicking 'Activate License'
If this does not work as expected, please use the 'Contact Support' button in the 'Documentation' tab of MacUpdater to receive help.



Q: How can I change the e-mail address associated with my purchase or license?

A:

The e-mail address isn't that important - as long as you have (and safely store) your license code you will be able to use MacUpdater.
However, in case you do forget your license, you can only recover it if you have access to the e-mail address entered for the purchase.
If you are sure you want to go ahead with having the e-mail address changed although it isn't essential then please use the 'Contact Support' button in the app to receive help. We can change your e-mail address.



Q: How can I recover my lost license key?

A:

You should have received an e-mail from us with your license key after purchase. If you did not get this e-mail or lost your license, you should be able to recover your license directly from MacUpdater. To do so, click MacUpdater's Documentation tab and then the 'Recover License' button. We will get back to you within one working day with help.



Q: I have activated the Privileged Install Helper. What if I ever wish to remove it?

A:

To remove the helper, delete these two files and then reboot:
/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.corecode.MacUpdaterPrivilegedInstallHelperTool
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.corecode.MacUpdaterPrivilegedInstallHelperTool.plist

If you want to reinstall the helper but are seeing error messages, the permissions on your Helper folder might be damaged - there are articles explaining how to fix this issue.

Q: How can I get a list of my installed software?

A:

You can just select apps in MacUpdater and the choose 'Copy' from the edit menu to copy the textual list of your app names. Alternatively, if you have the Pro edition and if are comfortable with the Terminal, you can get a list by leveraging the command-line tool:
/usr/bin/osascript -l JavaScript -e 'function run(argv) { return JSON.parse(argv[0])["apps"].map(a => a["name"]).sort().join("\n") }' "$(/Applications/MacUpdater.app/Contents/Resources/macupdater_client list --json)"



Q: How do I make MacUpdater use my custom app icons?

A:

MacUpdater caches icons to increase performance and will pick up changed icons eventually, but this can take a few weeks. If you do not want to wait you can clear your cache by selecting "Clear Cache…" from MacUpdaters application menu.