Check Versions of Common Apps and Services on macOS

Just some little one-liners to grab the version of a few common Apple services/built-in apps you might need the version of for another project I’m working on kinda’:

• cups: cups-config –version
• Finder: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Help Viewer: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /System/Library/CoreServices/HelpViewer.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• iBooks Author: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Application/iTunes\ Author.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• ical/Calendar: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Calendar.app/ | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• ichat/Messages: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Calendar.app/ | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• iMovie: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/iMovie.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• installer: /usr/sbin/installer -vers
• Photos/iPhoto: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Photos.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2 
• iTunes: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/iTunes.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2 
• Java: /usr/bin/java -version
• Keynote: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Keynote.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• macOS: sw_vers -productVersion
• macOS Server: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Server.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Mail: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Mail.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• mdnsresponder
• Motion: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Motion.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Numbers: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Numbers.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Pages Required mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Pages.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Preview: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Preview.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Quicktime: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Quicktime\ Player.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2 quicktime_broadcaster No (Darwin Stream Server deprecated) N/A quicktime_darwin_mp3_broadcaster No (deprecated service) N/A quicktime_pictureviewer No (for QuickTime for Windows) N/A quicktime_streaming_server No (deprecated service) N/A
• Remote Desktop: defaults read /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/version.plist CFBundleShortVersionString
• Safari: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Safari.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2 server_manager No (deprecated in 2006ish) N/A software_update tcp_ip_configuration_utility No (Laserwriter vuln from 2002) N/A terminal Required mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Textedit Required mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/TextEdit.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Transporter: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/itsmtransporter
• Xcode: mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Xcode.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2
• Xsan: /usr/sbin/cvversions
• openSSL: openssl -version
• Apache: httpd -v

If you notice, a lot of the built-in apps can be scanned with the same mdls command. There are certainly better ways for some, but when it comes to runtime cost, spotlight can respond quicker than a lot of other tools (other than purpose-built open source tools of course, who already have a smaller amount of data specific to the task). 3rd party software can be checked the same way. Let’s take Microsoft Outlook as an example:

mdls -name kMDItemVersion /Applications/Microsoft\ Outlook.app | cut -d ‘”‘ -f2

Additionally, Frameworks work a little differently. If I wanted to get the WebKit Framework version programmatically, I will need the system_profiler command along with the SPFrameworksDataType option. This will show me the version of WebKit, but strictly piping the output into grep won’t find the WebKit version. Instead I actually need to use an option I don’t use often with grep. Note that -A will allow you to define a number of lines to output following the pattern in question, so here I’m saying constrain my output to what you find that’s WebKit + the next ten lines, then constrain further for just the version number. 

system_profiler SPFrameworksDataType | grep -A10 WebKit: | grep Version

Anyway, more on all this soon.

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