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I frequently find myself SSHing into various OS X machines, and it'd be useful if I could tell what version of OS X I was on when I'm doing that. uname -a doesn't quite work, since Darwin kernel versions don't always change with the rest of the system.

Benjamin Pollack
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5 Answers5

79

sw_vers

My suggestion is to use sw_vers. Example output as of 10.6.4:

> sw_vers 
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.6.4
BuildVersion:   10F569

The answer that suggested system_profiler | grep 'System Version' is what I have tried to use in the past, but it has 2 problems.

  1. It is slow since it generates a full system_profiler dump of the machine, gathering all hardware and software inventory information.
  2. The output of system_profiler has changed over time. e.g. output of grep for 'Serial Number' on 10.6.4 is "Serial Number (system): ZNNNNNZNZZZ", whereas on 10.4.11 it was "Serial Number: ZNNNNZNZZZZ" - importance being the parse-ability of the output and the add " (system)" piece can be problematic unless you are expecting the change.
Joshua Pinter
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Mike Gray
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38

The easiest way is:

$ sw_vers -productVersion
10.6.4

From http://tinyapps.org/blog/mac/201008140700_os_x_version_terminal.html:

$ sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.6.4
BuildVersion:  
10F569
$ sw_vers -productVersion
10.6.4

Especially handy when resetting a password in single user mode, since the method varies based on which version of OS X is running.

Benjamin Oakes
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  • Thanks for the shout-out Benjamin! I've updated the post to include checking an offline OS X install like so: `grep -2 ProductVersion /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist`. Aloha, Miles – Miles Wolbe Sep 13 '16 at 20:44
8

Try this:

 system_profiler  | grep 'System Version'

Mike Gray's answer is better than this. Please see that

kbyrd
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6

Here is a Blog article with instructions How to Get the Mac OS X Version in a Shell Script

OS_VERSION=`/usr/bin/defaults read "$3/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion" ProductVersion`
echo "$OS_VERSION"
Ken Williams
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Larry Smithmier
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    This is very useful for finding the version of a non-active operating system, eg. a volume that is being repaired or such. – ylluminate Aug 04 '15 at 22:29
3

The system_profiler can be run as system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType. No need to grep through huge output.

αғsнιη
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user242114
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  • This does not provide an answer to the question. Once you have sufficient [reputation](https://unix.stackexchange.com/help/whats-reputation) you will be able to [comment on any post](https://unix.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/comment); instead, [provide answers that don't require clarification from the asker](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/214173/why-do-i-need-50-reputation-to-comment-what-can-i-do-instead). - [From Review](/review/low-quality-posts/228103) – Jeff Schaller Jan 28 '18 at 15:08
  • @JeffSchaller looks the answer is fine. It does an answer to the question. – αғsнιη Jan 28 '18 at 15:19
  • It determines the version of OSX? – Jeff Schaller Jan 28 '18 at 15:31
  • Perhaps it’s meant to be a comment of https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/584/117549? – Jeff Schaller Jan 28 '18 at 15:32
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    Yes, it does return in "System Version" part, see [OS X Version from Command Line](https://scottlinux.com/2011/11/18/os-x-version-from-command-line/), it is an answer to me instead of a comment IMO. – αғsнιη Jan 28 '18 at 16:53