Unwanted Monterey keeps downloading

[auxbuss]

I have a 2018 Macbook Air running Catalina. I have no wish to upgrade to Monterey. Software Updates is set to NOT "Automatically keep my Mac up to date, and "Advanced" is set to "Check for updates" and "Install data files and security updates". It is set NOT to "Download new updates when available". In other words, I want to manage updates myself and things are set that way.

However, twice now the machine has downloaded the 12Gb "Install macOS Monterey.app" into /Applications without notification. There's no indication this is happening, nor is there any sort of notification that it completes; I just happened to notice an increase is disk usage both times. Something that size is not hard to find.

Does anyone know how I can stop this happening?

P.S. My Late 2013 MBP, also on Catalina, is unable to install Monterey, yet Apple continuously sends notification to update to it. I can't stop those notifications either.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Does this code stop the updating on Catalina as it did for me while on Mojave?
My note says it's specifically for Mojave, but I don't remember if it's me typing in random things or if it actually works for Catalina too?
I would love to know.

defaults delete com.apple.preferences.softwareupdate LatestMajorOSSeenByUserBundleIdentifier && softwareupdate --list

 

[bogdanw]

In Big Sur, I had the settings mentioned here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/what-address-do-macos-upgrades-access.2332082/ and all worked well...until last week, when software update started downloading the Install macOS Monterey.app twice.

I noticed the increased network activity in LittleSnitch and terminated the softwareupdated processes from the Activity Monitor app.
I then searched for the temporary files and discovered the file InstallAssistant.pkg.partial inside some folders in /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/C/softwareupdated/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/
The first time, I just deleted all contents from the folders in /private/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n00000s0000068/

The second time, I managed to extract the Install macOS Monterey.app from the unfinished InstallAssistant.pkg.partial file (it was about 1GB) and put the app (about 43MB) in /Applications/

Now, the Software Update preference pane thinks I have the whole installer, doesn’t display a red dot anymore and if I press the button to install it just starts the partial app, without complaining about being incomplete.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I wonder if you made a small application with Automator, named it "Install macOS Monterey" and put it in the Applications folder…if that would keep the real one from downloading.

 

[ikir]

I have a 2018 Macbook Air running Catalina. I have no wish to upgrade to Monterey. Software Updates is set to NOT "Automatically keep my Mac up to date, and "Advanced" is set to "Check for updates" and "Install data files and security updates". It is set NOT to "Download new updates when available". In other words, I want to manage updates myself and things are set that way.

However, twice now the machine has downloaded the 12Gb "Install macOS Monterey.app" into /Applications without notification. There's no indication this is happening, nor is there any sort of notification that it completes; I just happened to notice an increase is disk usage both times. Something that size is not hard to find.

Does anyone know how I can stop this happening?

P.S. My Late 2013 MBP, also on Catalina, is unable to install Monterey, yet Apple continuously sends notification to update to it. I can't stop those notifications either. My iPhone can't run Find My iPhone, because switching it on makes continuous location requests and flattens the battery within 24-hours. My 2015 iPad Air, stuck on iOS 12, is doing great, though.

Monterey is one of the best OS I've ever used and runs very good even on older Mac, now it is pretty stable but I could suggest you to wait 12.3 and then install on your Air to keep you update and with last features.
About the autodownload it is pretty strange, have you check old App Store preferences about OS updates?

 

[bogdanw]

I wonder if you made a small application with Automator, named it "Install macOS Monterey" and put it in the Applications folder…if that would keep the real one from downloading.

You would probably need the original Info.plist and version.plist files.
I’ve reduced the app further to just 165KB

 

[chevyboy60013]

I am running macOS Monterey on an unsupported 2014 MacBook Air and so far have to say I love it. It seems very stable and seems very fast as well, noticed no performance loss with it at all. So far very happy I did the patch to be able to run macOS Monterey .

 

[isx2022]

You would probably need the original Info.plist and version.plist files.
I’ve reduced the app further to just 165KB
View attachment 1955875

Hi! I've tried your process and found "InstallAssistant.pkg.partial" but I don't know what to do next. Could you please share your reduced app that could help stop the automatic download of Monterey?

Thank you!

 

[bogdanw]

Hi! I've tried your process and found "InstallAssistant.pkg.partial" but I don't know what to do next.

Rename InstallAssistant.pkg.partial to InstallAssistant.pkg and you can use Pacifist https://www.charlessoft.com to extract Install macOS Monterey.app into your Applications folder.

 

[isx2022]

Rename InstallAssistant.pkg.partial to InstallAssistant.pkg and you can use Pacifist https://www.charlessoft.com to extract Install macOS Monterey.app into your Applications folder.

Thank you very much! I've tried to extract the big complete downloaded app file (12GB) without copying the big "SharedSupport.dmg" file in the contents of the app and made it into a smaller file (42MB), which works well too. I guess it's the same principle. Though the red dot still exists, but this is the best solution for now.

 

[Beachlover516]

Today I downloaded and installed 11.6.5 (Big Sur) as an update to 11.6.4. My TM backup was 12gb smaller than the last one before the update and after racking my brain for 3 hours trying to figure out how my TM got smaller, I remembered that the Monterey installation app was about 12 gb. When I checked my applications folder the Monterey installation app was gone. Not sure if it will show up again in the future, but was curious if anyone else experienced this?

 

[johnshine]

What I have done is delete downloads in every minutes. Just open the terminal, run

sudo crontab -e

add the following to it:
* * * * * rm -rf /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app
input :wq to exit and save

 

[bogdanw]

What I have done is delete downloads in every minutes. Just open the terminal, run

sudo crontab -e

add the following to it:
* * * * * rm -rf /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app
input :wq to exit and save

Why? It's not downloaded there, it's downloaded in /private/var/folders... (see above) and unpacked in /Applications/

 

[isx2022]

the above method of putting a smaller version of the installation app in the application folder still fails to work.

Here's a better way by putting the following lines in the system's hosts files at /etc/hosts:

## Mac Software Update
#/System/Library/CoreServices/Software Update.app/Contents/Resources/softwareupdated
127.0.0.1 swdist.apple.com
127.0.0.1 swscan.apple.com
127.0.0.1 swcdn.apple.com
#127.0.0.1 xp.apple.com
#/usr/libexec/mobileassetd
127.0.0.1 gdmf.apple.com
127.0.0.1 xp.apple.com
#/usr/libexec/nsurlsessiond
127.0.0.1 mesu.apple.com
127.0.0.1 updates.cdn-apple.com #download url

this stops the connection to the apple updating server. If you want to update other things, simply remove it and check for update in the system preference.

 

[bogdanw]

the above method of putting a smaller version of the installation app in the application folder still fails to work.

It’s working for me, but I have to update the small app to the latest version every time a Monterey update is released.
I could probably just edit the Info.plist and version.plist files inside, but it’s easier to start the download, stop it after 100MB and extract the new Install macOS Monterey.app from InstallAssistant.pkg.partial

 

[wordsworth]

Just adding my name to the list of those here who unwittingly had Monterey downloaded onto their computers by Apple. Not impressed at all by this, Apple. Please put your software house in order.

 

[iseeag]

On Catalina where Monterey installer were downloaded without notification. Installed Monterey and had the installer removed. Then it downloaded the installer again even though I ALREADY had Monterey installed. Had it removed again twice already. Now I know I'm not alone.

 

[camslice]

Add a cron to automatically delete the file when it appears. Answer courtesy of reddit

Open crontab with Vim:

sudo crontab -e


Press i for INSERT mode, then paste the following:

* * * * * rm -rf /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Monterey.app


Press ESC to leave INSERT mode, then :x to save and exit

 

[bogdanw]

Add a cron to automatically delete the file when it appears. Answer courtesy of reddit

Like most things coming from reddit, that’s just nonsense.
You are not stopping the download, you are deleting the app and, thus, re-downloading 12GB every time.

 

[johnshine]

Like most things coming from reddit, that’s just nonsense.
You are not stopping the download, you are deleting the app and, thus, re-downloading 12GB every time.

What really important thing is block the installation, for block download mostly affect other functions. If you have 120GB or even more free space on macos disk, is it need to care about 12GB space cost?

 

[bogdanw]

What really important thing is block the installation, for block download mostly affect other functions. If you have 120GB or even more free space on macos disk, is it need to care about 12GB space cost?

The installation is not unattended, it’s not happening without user interaction.
If you don’t care about 12GB, just keep the installer in Applications.