Apple’s unique advert for the Mac App Retailer in 2011
A brand new choice within the newest macOS Sequoia developer beta permits customers to put in Mac App Retailer downloads on exterior drives, and run the apps from there.
It is a seemingly small change to the third macOS Sequoia developer beta, however it’s vital, and it follows a earlier try to take care of apps and their storage necessities. From the primary beta of macOS Sequoia, Apple revised app installations in order that through the set up, they not require twice the cupboard space of the app itself.
Now if customers activate the choice within the Mac App Retailer, bigger apps will mechanically obtain to a nominated location as an alternative of straight into the common Purposes folder. Particularly, if an app is bigger than 1GB, it would obtain to that exterior drive.
This brings Mac App Retailer apps consistent with how third-party apps have all the time labored. Third-party apps obtain to a Mac person’s Obtain folder first, after which can both be run there, or their installers can.
Area saving
The most important benefit this new choice brings is that by being put in on an exterior drive, apps not take up area on the Mac’s personal inside storage. That is vital as a result of Apple costs over the percentages for better quantities of SSD storage — and that the quantity can’t be elevated later.
Consequently, that is a right away profit to customers with the bottom configuration of Macs. The minimal storage that may be purchased on any Mac as we speak is 256GB, however even that’s low, and fairly current fashions shipped with simply 128GB.
Momentary apps
There may be additionally, although, the truth that an app could be tried with out including it to the Purposes folder. This has most clearly been a profit to third-party builders as they check a number of variations of their apps, however it additionally has makes use of for informal customers.
If there may be, for example, an app that helps them do a sure process they know they’re going to by no means must do once more, they’ll quickly add it to their Mac after which uninstall it.
That may be performed with common Mac App Retailer apps being put in to the Purposes folder — however provided that the person has permission to put in there.
This new choice is at present solely current within the newest developer beta of macOS Sequoia. It ought to seem within the subsequent public beta, earlier than the brand new OS is launched formally later this yr.