Tag Archive

Script to find application architectures on your Mac

Posted on November 16, 2021 by alanysiu

Apple has once again switched architectures. It used to be a switch from PowerPC to Intel. Now it is a switch from Intel to Apple Silicon.

Vendors are in the process of switching from releasing Intel only or separate Intel and Silicon binaries to releasing universal binaries (that will work on both Intel and Silicon), and users are still often resorting to using Rosetta 2 to run Intel applications on Silicon Macs.

If you want to do a quick inventory on which applications you have installed are Intel only, Silicon only, or universal, you can go to Apple symbol > About This Mac > System Report > Software > Applications.

I’ve also written up a script that will comb through those apps and display them grouped together by architecture type, and also display a summary of how many apps of architecture type there are.

Script output translation:

  • arch_arm_i64 = Universal
  • arch_i64 = Intel
  • arch_other = Other
  • arch_i32 = 32-bit (Unsupported)
  • arch_arm = Apple Silicon

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Copying the Rosetta 2 installer for offline installations

Posted on March 24, 2021 by alanysiu

I honestly don’t know why this gets asked about as often as it does, but I’ve seen several instances in which Mac admins want to know how to get the Rosetta 2 installer .pkg to be installed offline. The installer is about 6.2 MB, so I don’t think bandwidth is the issue, but maybe it is.

In any case, if you have a Silicon-chip Mac with an active Internet connection, run softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license to install Rosetta 2. Then, run grep "RosettaUpdateAuto.pkg" /var/log/install.log to find where the installer downloaded to.

The location will likely be something like /var/folders/f5/_hdu19hcuin1ckjnqkjcndwkcnadskjnckjqwn/T/OAHSoftwareUpdate/RosettaUpdateAuto.pkg. Go to wherever it is in Finder, and then copy that installer .pkg to wherever you want it to be.

Note: I’m just telling you how to locate the installer. I’m not vouching for it working offline, since I haven’t tested that.

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