How to Stop “Upgrade to MacOS Mojave” Notification Banners in Mac OS

Are you not ready to upgrade to MacOS Mojave yet? If so, you may wish to disable and hide the “Upgrade to macOS Mojave” notification banner that comes up frequently in prior versions of Mac OS system software, as Apple pushes users to upgrade to the latest MacOS release.

Whether you’re avoiding the MacOS Mojave upgrade because you’re waiting for a future software update release, because your current system works just fine as is, because something on the Mac is not supported by Mojave, some other compatibility issue, or any other number of reasons, you’ll be happy to know that you can stop the “Upgrade to MacOS Mojave” notification alert from showing up on a Mac.

While some Mac users may constantly click on the “Not Now” button or use perpetual Do Not Disturb mode to stop all Notifications on the Mac, which will hide the “Upgrade to macOS Mojave” alert in that process along with all other notifications, that’s not a solution for all users. But not to worry, it turns out that you can hide the “Upgrade to macOS Mojave” notification in a similar way as hiding the “Upgrade to MacOS High Sierra” notifications worked before, and there’s an added command that can disable the installer notification in Mac OS as well.

How to Stop “Upgrade to MacOS Mojave” Notification Banners in Mac OS

You should back up the Mac before proceeding any further, this involves modifying a system file. Failure to backup the Mac could result in unintended outcomes, including data loss or other problems. Do not skip backing up the computer.

1. From the Finder of Mac OS, pull down the “Go” menu and choose “Go To Folder”
2. Enter the following path exactly then click “Go”
   /Library/Bundles/
   
3. Locate the file named “OSXNotification.bundle” and then hold down the Command key as you drag that file to another location, like ~/Desktop/ or ~/Documents/ , this will move the “OSXNotification.bundle” file so that you can restore the macOS upgrade alerts if desired



4. Authenticate with an admin login when asked, this is necessary because you are moving a system file
5. The /Library/Bundles/ folder should now no longer have the “OSXNotification.bundle” file within that directory, go ahead and close that directory in Finder
6. Next launch the Terminal application as found in /Applications/Utilities/, then enter the following command exactly:

softwareupdate --ignore macOSInstallerNotification_GM

7. Hit Return/Enter to execute the command, this tells Mac OS software update to ignore macOS Installer notifications



8. Exit out of Terminal as usual

That’s it, you should now be able to dismiss the “Upgrade to macOS Mojave” notification and never see it again (unless you reverse all of this, of course).

Note that you can also delete the “OSXNotification.bundle” file but that is not recommended as you would not be able to easily reverse this process, and in the future you may change your mind and wish to get the “Upgrade to MacOS (name)” notifications again.

All-in-one Command to Disable “Upgrade to MacOS Mojave” Notifications

If you’re a savvy command line user you can also string the commands together like so, this will move the OSXNotification.bundle into the user Documents folder, and then ignore the Mac OS installer notifications:

sudo mv /Library/Bundles/OSXNotification.bundle ~/Documents/ && softwareupdate --ignore macOSInstallerNotification_GM

Because the command uses sudo, you will need to authenticate with admin/root to issue that command properly. Recall that improper command line syntax can lead to unexpected results, thus it’s only appropriate for advanced users to use the command line.

Reversing course to regain the “Upgrade to macOS Mojave” Notifications Again

If you decide you want to get the notifications to bug you to upgrade to macOS Mojave again, then you’ll need to move the “OSXNotification.bundle” file back into /Library/Bundles/ and then reset the ignored softwareupdate list by command line.

For some quick background, using the command line tool for softwareupdate allows you to install Mac OS system software updates via the Terminal, and as you can see here you can also ignore updates with it.

It’s worth pointing out that this is specifically for the “Upgrade to macOS Mojave” notification banners that users get if they’re actively running an older version of Mac OS system software, like El Capitan, Sierra, High Sierra, etc. If you’re already on Mojave you won’t get these alerts, and this is not the same as opting-out of Mojave beta updates if you’re already on MacOS Mojave.

Thanks to MacHewie and Alex for the tip suggestions and the “softwareupdate –ignore “macOSInstallerNotification_GM”‘ command!

If you have any comments, thoughts, or other methods to address this topic or to hide or disable the “Upgrade to MacOS Mojave” notifications, feel free to share them in the comments below, send them to us on Twitter, or email them!