Schedule time for software updates
My Satellite internet provider has a window for downloads in the middle of the night. How can I schedule update downloads to be done during that time?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15
I've never seen a setting to schedule the downloading of Mac updates, but you can engineer this by using System Preferences to download all Mac updates from Apple and also to schedule your Mac to start up or wake from sleep and shutdown or go back to sleep at specific times.
The problem is though that if updates are available at other times they will also download at these times if you Mac is in active. However, if you still wish to set up a middle of the night schedule this is possible, but if that is the only time you wish to get the updates then you'd need manually to select the download and install boxes on each occasion you know the download is available.
First, go into System Preferences > Software Update > Advanced and put a tick in all the boxes to allow downloads. One of the options is also for App Store updates.
Then navigate to System Preferences > Energy Saver > Schedule
then tick the box to start or wake from sleep, add a day (eg. Every Day) and time. Do the same for the second selection to sleep or shutdown.
In theory, the Mac will look in the times you have specified and should update when they are available. Or you could activate the scheduling when you are aware of an update (System Preferences will have a red icon indicating this).
I'd be interested to know if this actually works.