Apple has stopped providing standalone updaters in macOS Big Sur

Apple has stopped providing standalone updater versions of its macOS system software, starting with macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 — but is still providing them for Catalina and Mojave as recently as December 16.

For decades, Apple has offered a users the ability to download standalone smaller update files without needing to download a full OS install image, or the same update in the macOS Software Update feature multiple times across a rollout of Macs. In macOS Big Sur, that download has not been made available for any of the updates.

As noted by The Eclectic Light Company, Apple has yet to release a standalone installer for macOS 11.1 much less 11.0.1, despite releasing standalone installers for macOS Catalina and Mojave security updates on Dec. 16.

AppleInsider has confirmed that this is the case. Sources within Apple corporate not authorized to speak on behalf of the company point to content caching options available in macOS as an alternative to prevent multiple Internet downloads. However, this does nothing for administrators that want a mobile update file on external media, or similar deployment.

According to Mr. Macintosh, Apple is advising users who need individual downloads to contact them in an "official capacity" to hope to change Apple's point of view on the matter.

Manual downloadable delta and combo updates for Big Sur are no longer available. I will let our resident #MacAdmins expert explain

"If you have a need for individual downloads for Big Sur delta/combo updaters - please make sure that's filed in an official capacity with us"
— Mr. Macintosh (@ClassicII_MrMac) December 17, 2020

27 Comments

dysamoria 3430 comments · 12 Years

About 3 years ago

Why do Apple seem to enjoy making things harder for Mac adoption & management in institutions?

jdb8167 626 comments · 16 Years

Isn't the App Store download equivalent to a combo updater? Maybe I'm missing something. Once you download the installer you can save a copy and reuse it. Along with the content caching, it doesn't seem like this is that big of a deal unless I'm missing something. You can also use the App Store download to create a bootable recovery disk if you need to distribute to users to update on their own. The real problem is for those users who have very slow or severely expensive internet. I don't see any way to avoid downloading the 12 GB installer.

pulseimages 653 comments · 8 Years

Have they worked out the bugs for Big Sur yet? I haven’t downloaded it as of yet.

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

pulseimages said:

Have they worked out the bugs for Big Sur yet? I haven’t downloaded it as of yet.

You, or people like you, ask this question every time an update is released. It’s a tired and useless question and the answer is simple. No, bugs have not been worked out and never will be. All software has bugs. There is no such thing as bug free software. However, millions of people are using Big Sur and being productive, carrying on with their lives. On tech blogs ALL you ever hear about are bugs, both real and imagined.

If you haven’t installed it yet you probably never will because of the question you asked. You want bug free software but it doesn't exist and never has.

And by the way, who do you accept as an authoritative source to tell you it’s okay to install Big Sure?

pulseimages said:

Have they worked out the bugs for Big Sur yet? I haven’t downloaded it as of yet.

There are bugs with installing on external drives and running Big Sur on an external boot drive. I can't get it to work at all on my M1 MacBook Air. But Big Sur seems pretty solid for day to day use. Better than Catalina in my opinion.