Those who are new and well-seasoned alike in administering or engineering for a fleet of macOS devices would probably find these tools to be useful. To me, they are essential. Please find the list below of my favorites:
- DownloadFullInstaller – This tool by Armin Brieigal downloads the current full macOS installers in PKG format. This is a fantastic tool for workflows involving the caching of the installer for upgrades, updates, and refreshes.
- iMazing Profile Editor – Along with many other useful tools by iMazing, this editor creates Mobile Configuration Profiles that not only includes the most current stock profiles available from Apple, but also includes payloads for other popular apps as well. This can be used for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and TVOS.
- PPC-Utility – Jamf’s PPC Utility allows for the creation of custom Mobile Configuration Profiles that allow for the enforcing of Privacy Preferences. This is great to take the burden off users to lessen the amount of time they spend manually granting access to system components in the System Preferences.
- Download and Install Microsoft product.zsh – talkingmoose wrote an incredible script that allows for the installation of Microsoft products. This script is optimized for use in Jamf Pro, but can be modified for use with other MDM products.
- Installing Rosetta 2 – Rich Trouton expounds upon and provides commands and a script that are essential for Rosetta 2 deployment.
- Apple Configurator 2 – I would be remiss to not mention this one. While not as robust as iMazing Profile Editor, it does allow for the creation of Mobile Configuration Profiles for Apple’s platforms, and more. It can also aid in reviving hardware, provisioning iOS, iPadOS, and TVOS devices.
Do you have other suggestions or would recommend any tools that are essential to your day-to-day, or even occasional use as a Mac Admin? Please feel free to comment!