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How to update/upgrade your Apple Mac Mini M4 over ssh

September 22nd, 2025

The Mac Mini M4 in its basic configuration is a very affordable and efficient device for a small local server. Its 16GB is a significant improvement over the former 8GB of the M3, and a single core of the M4 Mini is as fast as any other Mac’s single core. It just has fewer cores than other models

Power-efficiency is really great, it sips around 3-4 W when idle which is comparable to a Raspberry Pi.

Using the Mini M4 as a server normally means you have only a network cable attached, but no screen, keyboard, or mouse.

To update your Mac Mini M4 server via SSH

To get a list of available updates:

softwareupdate -l

To update all the software:

sudo softwareupdate -i -a

If you attempt to upgrade your OS to a new version this way, for example Tahoe, you’ll get this output

sudo softwareupdate -i -a
Software Update Tool



Finding available software

Downloading macOS Tahoe 26

Password:




Downloaded: macOS Tahoe 26


It doesn’t install the available upgrade.


To actually upgrade, you need to pass -R, this causes your M4 to restart and  upgrade on boot.


sudo softwareupdate -i -r -R


Now, the M4 will restart and upgrade. This will take a couple of minutes.


How to check if a Mac Mini M4 is running macOS 26 Tahoe


To check if the Mac Mini M4 is upgraded to macOS 26 Tahoe, run uname -a and verify the output:


Darwin mini.local 25.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 25.0.0: Mon Aug 25 21:12:01 PDT 2025; root:xnu-12377.1.9~3/RELEASE_ARM64_T8132 arm64


								
				

					
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