mas.md from HariSekhon/Knowledge-Base repo: https://github.com/HariSekhon/Knowledge-Base

mas.md

Mas

mas-cli/mas

• Summary
• Install
• Usage
  • List Already Installed Apps from the App Store
  • Search for an App
  • Get Status of a Specific App by ID
  • Get Detailed Info About a Specific App by ID
  • Install an App
  • Uninstall an App
  • Save All Installed Packages
  • Install All Packages from Saved List
  • See Outdated Apps
  • Upgrade An Installed App
  • Upgrade All Installed Apps

Summary

Open source macOS command interface to the App Store.

Install

Using Homebrew:

brew install mas

Usage

List Already Installed Apps from the App Store

mas list

Search for an App

Example: Shazam

mas search Shazam

 897118787  Shazam: Identify Songs          (2.11)
 545519333  Amazon Prime Video              (10.114)
1320450034  DaftCloud                       (4.2.0)
1478418722  Just Dance Now                  (8.3.0)
1556054655  Vinyls                          (2.3.2)
1599264580  WaveSavr                        (1.0)
6449814769  Swipefy for Spotify             (2.11.6)
6742663367  tynlau - music recogniser       (2025.2)
1549017891  BeatsBuddy                      (5.1.0)
1525123200  Shared: Music and Podcasts      (4.0.5)
6748985865  Daft Music: Music Player        (1.6.3)
6476125287  Dynamic-Lyrics                  (1.9.1)
1561696730  DiscoCat: Discography Catalog   (1.2.2)
 975364678  SongPop Classic - Music trivia  (2.38.2)
1592867431  Music Recognizer                (1.1)
1563765031  Crane Sudoku - Puzzle game      (0.1.1)
6739261943  TrackTrack - Gather Playlists   (1.0)

The first entry is the one we want, note the App ID on the left is 897118787.

Get Status of a Specific App by ID

mas get <app_id>

Using the App ID from above for the Shazam app:

mas get 897118787

Warning: Already got Shazam (897118787)

Get Detailed Info About a Specific App by ID

mas lookup 897118787

Shazam: Identify Songs 2.11 [Free]
By: Apple Distribution International
Released: 2022-08-11
Minimum OS: 10.14
Size: 11.8 MB
From: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/shazam-identify-songs/id897118787?mt=12&uo=4

Install an App

mas install <app_id> [<app_id2> ...]

Install Shazam by its App ID:

mas install 897118787

Warning: Already installed Shazam (897118787)

The lucky command installs the top hit for the search term, in the Shazam case above we know it's the top hit:

mas lucky Shazam

Warning: Already installed Shazam (897118787)

Uninstall an App

mas uninstall <app_id>

Save All Installed Packages

Create a text file list of all the installed App Store apps with their IDs, stripping off the trailing version numbers using cut:

mas list | cut -c-40 >> mas-packages.txt

You can see my list in HariSekhon/DevOps-Bash-tools - setup/mas-packages.txt.

Install All Packages from Saved List

First stripping out all # comment lines and then passing the first column of App IDs to mas install:

sed 's/#.*//' mas-packages.txt | awk '{print $1}' | xargs mas install

See Outdated Apps

mas outdated

 663592361  DuckDuckGo                (1.169.0  -> 1.174.0)
 406056744  Evernote                  (10.158.1 -> 11.1.2)
 408981434  iMovie                    (10.4.2   -> 10.4.4)
 409183694  Keynote                   (14.4     -> 14.5)
1295203466  Microsoft Remote Desktop  (10.9.9   -> 11.3.2)
 409203825  Numbers                   (14.4     -> 14.5)
 409201541  Pages                     (14.4     -> 14.5)
 803453959  Slack                     (4.46.101 -> 4.47.72)
 747648890  Telegram                  (12.1     -> 12.4.1)
 310633997  WhatsApp                  (25.37.76 -> 26.3.75)
 497799835  Xcode                     (15.4     -> 26.2)

Upgrade An Installed App

Upgrade WhatsApp using its ID as seen in the leftmost column above:

mas upgrade 310633997

It will download and then macOS will pop-up prompt you to close WhatsApp desktop if it's open.

==> Downloading WhatsApp Messenger (26.3.75)
==> Downloaded WhatsApp Messenger (26.3.75)
==> Updating WhatsApp Messenger (26.3.75)
==> Updated WhatsApp Messenger (26.3.75)

If you trying upgrading an app like Shazam which is already at the latest version then there will be no output and a zero exit code.

Using the Shazam app with ID 897118787 from further above:

mas upgrade 897118787

No output.

Upgrade All Installed Apps

mas upgrade