Check macOS installer build

My new 15″ MacBook Pro is coming this week, and due to multiple reports of units shipping with SIP (System Integrity Protection) disabled I wanted to play it safe and immediately wipe the new machine with a clean install of macOS from a thumbdrive. The question was, however: is the build of macOS currently on the Mac App Store the most recent one that supports the new MBPs (10.12.1 build 16B2657)?

Finding out is not that easy, actually. First you’ll want to download macOS from the Mac App Store, then open the terminal and launch a few commands to mount the nested DMGs you donwloaded with the installer, and then check a plist file:

hdiutil attach /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sierra.app/Contents/SharedSupport/InstallESD.dmg
hdiutil attach /Volumes/OS\ X\ Install\ ESD/BaseSystem.dmg
cat /Volumes/OS\ X\ Base\ System/System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist

Just make sure paths are correct.

Attaching the DMGs might take a while, as they need to be verified first. You can skip the verification process by putting -noverify between attach and the file path.

You should get something like this:

<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF–8”?>

<plist version=“1.0”>
<dict>
<key>ProductBuildVersion</key>
<string>16B2657</string>
<key>ProductCopyright</key>
<string>1983–2016 Apple Inc.</string>
<key>ProductName</key>
<string>Mac OS X</string>
<key>ProductUserVisibleVersion</key>
<string>10.12.1</string>
<key>ProductVersion</key>
<string>10.12.1</string>
</dict>
</plist>

You can clearly see that ProductVersion is 10.12.1 and ProductBuildVersion is 16B2657.