iOS Software Download Progress in Finder

Since updating my MacBook Pro to macOS Catalina, which removes iTunes, I can no longer view the download progress of updating the software for my iPhone. When updating through iTunes there used to be a progress status bar giving me an idea of time to download. But now, since the updates occur through Finder, all I see is a spinning icon next to my phones name. Is there any way to show the download progress and time left in this new Catalina update?

MacBook Pro 15", macOS 10.15

Posted on Oct 26, 2019 7:56 PM

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Posted on Oct 29, 2019 9:40 PM

While there is no progress bar available, one potential way to estimate the progress is through Terminal, with the following command:


ls -lhrt ~/Library/iTunes/iPhone\ Software\ Updates


It will show the size of the current (*.ipsw.download) and all previous (*.ipsw) update files, which can be used to estimate progress. For example, for a 2.9G update file (can be estimated using previous update files), if we see that the current update file size is 2.3G, then the progress would be approximately 2.3G / 2.9G = 79%. By running the above command periodically, we can somewhat know how long it may still take (or at least the downloading is still in progress and not stopped because of network or other issue).


Hope this helps, thank you very much!



114 replies

Oct 29, 2019 4:28 AM in response to VolsRam14

I just updated mine to 13.2 for first time in Catalina, and you are right there is no indicator of download progress, though from memory this used to be in top RH corner of the main screen or in Launchpad, outside of iTunes.

I tend to set upgrades off and go and get on with something else and only do while-U-wait on Syncs.

The circles do change to pie chart but only for sync and backup, not software updates.

Mar 12, 2020 11:01 AM in response to VolsRam14

still same issue till today mid march! its been since catalina almost 5 months 3 major updates and no news or any feedback! tragic. its like recently with some actions they want us to use iTunes in Windows PCs and not Mac OS! extremely saddened!

VolsRam14 wrote:

Since updating my MacBook Pro to macOS Catalina, which removes iTunes, I can no longer view the download progress of updating the software for my iPhone. When updating through iTunes there used to be a progress status bar giving me an idea of time to download. But now, since the updates occur through Finder, all I see is a spinning icon next to my phones name. Is there any way to show the download progress and time left in this new Catalina update?


May 2, 2020 10:32 AM in response to VolsRam14

I found that you can also track this in Activity Monitor. If you keep an eye on the network traffic for the process called: AMPDeviceAgent you can get live data usage.


It is still not how I want to do it (a spinning set of errors is only helpful in know that something is happening), but I think this workaround is better than manually issuing terminal commands.


May 13, 2020 4:19 PM in response to olamide208

That is the output of the `ls` command, which lists the contents of a given directory. Each line of the output can be interpreted like a table. In your case there's only one line. We'll take the pieces one at a time:


`-rw-r--r--`


This indicates what the permissions are for the file. The ten characters shown are of the form `drwxrwxrwx`. Each letter means that a certain permission is "on". If a letter is replaced by a hyphen ("-") that means the permission is "off". The first one ("d") just indicates whether the item is a directory (also known as a folder). After that the letters come in three groups of `rwx`. The `r` represents read permission, the `w` write permission, and the `x` execute permission. The three groups themselves are for the file owner, the file owner's group, and finally for all other users.


In this case, `-rw-r--r--` indicates that

  • The item is a regular file, not a directory
  • The file owner has read and write permission
  • The file owner's group has read permission
  • All other users have read permission
  • The file is not executable


`mykkel`


This is the username of the file owner.


`staff`


This is the file owner's group.


`537M`


This is the size of the file (which is probably what you're interested in). The `M` indicates Megabytes (or possibly Mibibytes, I'm not sure)


`May 11 13:44`


This is the "Last Modified" date of the file.


`iphone_5.5_P3_13.4.1_17E62_Restore.ipsw.download`


This is the filename.

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iOS Software Download Progress in Finder

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