Unfortunately, some have found that they have to repeat this in order to keep their firmware up to date, but others have only had to do it once, and that has enabled subsequent updates to install correctly. If you still have its original Apple-supplied internal disk, replacing that and installing a current version of macOS, perhaps to an external disk, should update its firmware to that supplied with the version of macOS you install. So what can you then do to update your Mac’s firmware? This is most frequent with specific models, such as the iMac Retina 5K 27-inch Late 2015 (iMac17,1), and can occur with other models when their internal storage has been replaced from the original. Quite a few users have had a shock when they’ve checked their Mac’s firmware, which turns out to be ancient, even though they’ve kept macOS up to date. Simpler still, download and use my free utility SilentKnight, which does all the work for you, automatically checking the firmware version against my online database, as well as checking that your Mac’s security data files are up to date, and more. If your Mac is running Mojave or later, then look here for recent Macs, or here for older ones. The other half of the information you need is something which Apple paradoxically doesn’t provide, a list of current firmware versions by model. Of course that only tells you what version is installed, and not what it should be.

Is your Mac’s firmware up to date? It’s simple to check: use the About This Mac command in the Apple menu, click on System Report… and, in System Information, read what it reports for System Firmware Version (in the Hardware Overview).

Update macos