Copying info listed in System Info screens

Question

Copying info listed in System Info screens

I'm trying to copy a list of apps from the About This Mac > More Info > System Report > Software > Applications into a text file with the ulimate aim of creating a Numbers file that contains these data.

While I can Select All, I cannot select Copy or drag the selection to a blank Text Edit window.

Any tips on how to accomplish this? I don't need to bring over the detailed info from the box below the listing, just the 5 columns in the main list.

If there's a CLI that will accomplidh this, I'm willing to try that route.

Thanks,

Tod

Mac mini, OS X Mavericks (10.9), 10GB SDRAM 740 GB fusion drive

Posted on Mar 12, 2014 5:11 PM

Reply

Answer 1

arthur

Level 5

5,254 points

Mar 12, 2014 5:27 PM in response to TodFromIndiana

I was unable to copy or move that Application data either.

You can do a system report with the Terminal, though, and copy and paste that:

In Terminal, type

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType

(it has to be exact, so type it carefully or copy and paste it)

and then hit return.

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 12, 2014 5:52 PM in response to arthur

@ arthur,

Thanks. However that CLI copied items that reside in the /System/Library, not items in /Applications. Otherwise, it produced a lot of data.

Reply

Answer 3

Mar 14, 2014 12:08 PM in response to arthur

@ arthur,

I'm going to designate your reply as solving ny question.

While the cli didn't seem to list what I wanted, I added an output statement. The resulting .txt file is precisely what I was looking for.

system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType >> ~/Downloads/allmyapps.txt

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

-Tod

Reply