As part of my work, I occasionally need to download installer packages for certain applications from the Mac App Store. In particular, I routinely download and archive certain Apple applications from the MAS to guard against the possibility that Apple will remove older versions of a particular application that I still need to have available.
A tool that has helped me with this has been Max Schlapfer‘s AppStoreExtract script. This script is designed to make copies of the installers from the Mac App Store, and is able to handle multiple installer downloads at once.
AppStoreExtract is available from GitHub at the following address:
https://github.com/maxschlapfer/MacAdminHelpers
For more details on how to download installers from the MAS using AppStoreExtract, see below the jump.
1. If needed, download the AppStoreExtract script and store it in a convenient location.
2. Once the AppStoreExtract script is available, open the Mac App Store and sign in with the appropriate Apple ID for the applications in question.
3. Open Terminal and begin running the script.
Note: Run the script with the logged-in user’s privileges. Do not run this script with root privileges, as the script will not locate the appropriate Mac App Store download folder when running as root.
4. You’ll be notified that you can press any key to finish the process once the software has been downloaded from the MAS.
5. Go to the Mac App Store’s Purchased list.
6. Click the Install button for the desired application(s).
7. Wait for the MAS to complete installation of all the desired applications.
8. Go back to Terminal and press any key.
9. When prompted to finalize the packages, press the Y key followed by the Return key on your keyboard.
10. The script will rename the downloaded installers to match the application name and version, then create a disk image with the installer package contained inside.
11. The disk images will be stored in /Users/Shared/AppStore_Packages
These downloaded installers will be signed with the Mac App Store’s certificate. From there, you can use it on its own or as part of a deployment workflow.
When the applications in question are installed on a Mac using the downloaded installer package, there will not be a _MASReceipt from the App Store included as part of the application. This means that the applications are not tied to a specific Apple ID.
