Mac App Store¶

ID: mas
Home page: https://github.com/mas-cli/mas
Version requirement: >= 7
Platforms: 🍎 macOS
Operations: installed · outdated · search · install · upgrade · upgrade_all · remove
purl types: pkg:mas
Brewfile entry: mas, in Brewfile backups
CLI name: mas
Issues and PRs: 📦 manager: mas
Source: meta_package_manager/managers/mas.py

mas drives the Mac App Store from the command line.

Packages are Mac App Store applications, keyed by the numeric adamID Apple assigns each title (the id in an App Store link). mpm reads and writes that ID; the display name rides along only as a label.

Every query reads --json output, the supported programmatic interface since the >=7.0.0 floor added --json to list, outdated and search. It sidesteps the column-alignment ambiguities of the tabular listing, where an app name carrying parentheses or padding whitespace would derail a positional parser.

Note

mas prints one JSON object per app, concatenated rather than wrapped in an array, and leaves control characters (embedded newlines, U+2028) unescaped inside name and description strings (mas-cli/mas#1248). mpm decodes the buffer one object at a time with strict=False so each object ends at its own closing brace instead of splitting on those bytes. The bug is fixed upstream for the (still unreleased) 7.1.0, so this workaround can be retired once the requirement floor rises to >=7.1.0.

Note

mas self-escalates: it asks for root itself when a store mutation needs it, so mpm never wraps install, upgrade or uninstall in its own sudo.

What `mpm` adds to `mas`¶

Through mpm, mas gains --exact and --extended search, to narrow to exact names or match descriptions.

Bigger still, mpm reaches across every manager at once: mpm installed and mpm outdated cover mas alongside every other manager you run in one table, mpm upgrade --all updates them together, and mpm sbom exports the whole machine as one bill of materials.

Every mpm command also gains --dry-run and --plan previews, cross-scheme version comparison and purl identifiers. See manager augmentations for how each one is built.

Your `mas` commands, in `mpm`¶

You already know mas: each operation maps one-to-one onto mpm, in an interface shared by every manager.

To…	With `mas`	With `mpm`
List what’s installed	`mas list --json`	`mpm --mas installed`
List outdated packages	`mas outdated --json`	`mpm --mas outdated`
Search for a package	`mas search python --json`	`mpm --mas search python`
Install a package	`mas install 945397020`	`mpm install pkg:mas/945397020`
Upgrade one package	`mas upgrade 945397020`	`mpm --mas upgrade 945397020`
Upgrade everything	`mas upgrade`	`mpm --mas upgrade --all`
Remove a package	`mas uninstall 1494051017`	`mpm remove pkg:mas/1494051017`

Prefix any command above with --dry-run to simulate the underlying manager calls without touching the system: the safe way to watch what mpm would do before trusting it.

Operations¶

Operation	Supported	Notes
`installed`	✓
`outdated`	✓
`orphans`
`search`	✓	exact and extended search backfilled by `mpm`
`install`	✓
`upgrade`	✓
`upgrade_all`	✓
`remove`	✓
`sync`
`cleanup`
`doctor`

Selecting and configuring `mas`¶

Deselect mas for a single run with --no-mas, or persist the choice in your configuration:

[mpm]
mas = false

Keep it enabled but tune how mpm drives it with a per-manager override:

[mpm.managers.mas]
timeout = 900

mpm config-template mas prints every overridable attribute as a ready-to-paste block.

Recipes¶

A few jobs you would otherwise script around mas, one mpm command each:

Snapshot and clone a machine: mpm --mas dump mas.toml, then mpm restore mas.toml on the next one.
Export a Brewfile entry instead: mpm --mas dump --brewfile Brewfile.
Export a compliance SBOM: mpm --mas sbom (CycloneDX by default, --spdx for SPDX).

Privilege escalation¶

mpm runs this manager as the current user and never prepends sudo by default. Flip the policy for its privileged operations with --sudo or the per-manager sudo override.

See privilege escalation for the full policy.

Cooldown¶

State of Mac App Store’s release-age gating, from the cooldown support table:

Status: ❌ None

A cooldown only pays off where a compromised release can be withdrawn while the clock runs, and can only be emulated where the registry dates its releases. From the retraction table:

Registry: Curated app stores and archives

With --cooldown set, mpm skips this manager’s install and upgrade operations rather than run them unguarded (fail-closed); --allow-unsupported-managers opts back in.

Version probe¶

The version is extracted from the output of mas version with:

r"(?P<version>\S+)"

Reference traces¶

Raw native outputs captured in the manager source: the reference mpm’s parsers were written against. If you know Mac App Store well and a transcript below looks wrong, or a newer release changed its output format, report it.

$ mas list --json
{"adamID":1569813296,"bundleID":"com.1password.1password-safari","name":"1Password for Safari","version":"2.3.5"}
{"adamID":1295203466,"bundleID":"com.microsoft.rdc.macos","name":"Microsoft Remote Desktop","version":"10.7.6"}
{"adamID":409183694,"bundleID":"com.apple.iWork.Keynote","name":"Keynote","version":"12.0"}

$ mas outdated --json
{"adamID":409183694,"name":"Keynote","newVersion":"12.0","version":"11.0"}
{"adamID":1176895641,"name":"Spark","newVersion":"2.11.21","version":"2.11.20"}

Feed any of these through mpm and the raw output becomes one uniform table, the same shape for every manager: filter it, project columns, or export it (mpm --mas installed --output json, or csv, toml, yaml), each package carrying a purl and a version comparable across managers.

Changelog¶

6.5.0 (2026-05-25)
- Bump minimum required mas version from 1.8.7 to 7.0.0, switch installed, outdated, and search to parse --json output, update homepage_url to https://github.com/mas-cli/mas, and drop the explicit sudo wrapper around mas uninstall.
5.19.0 (2024-11-14)
- Implement remove operation.
- Bump minimal requirement to 1.8.7.
- Reactivate mas tests.
5.3.0 (2022-06-25)
- Fix parsing of variable-length output in installed and outdated operations.
3.1.0 (2020-04-02)
- Retrieve version in search results.
- Bump minimal version to 1.6.1.
2.4.0 (2017-01-28)
- Fix upgrade of mas packages. Closes #32.
1.10.0 (2016-10-04)
- Let mas report its own version.
- Bump minimal requirement of mas to 1.3.1.
- Fetch currently installed version from mas. Closes #4.
- Fix parsing of mas package versions after the 1.3.1 release.
1.5.0 (2016-07-25)
- Add support for mas.