Are you tired of seeing the “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” notifications on your Mac running Ventura or Monterey? If so, you can hide those notifications and stop the “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” nagging on your Mac.
It’s not unusual for Mac users to continue running older versions of system software, well after a new version of MacOS is released, and Sonoma is no different. In fact, there are tons of Mac users who continue to run MacOS Ventura, MacOS Monterey, and earlier MacOS releases, whether for compatibility reasons, personal preference, they’re not yet ready to install Sonoma, or maybe they’re simply following the old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Whatever the case, if you do not want to see the “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” notifications on your Mac any longer, you can hide them.
You will still need to use this method to install macOS updates without upgrading to macOS Sonoma, but at least you won’t get pelted with the notifications anymore.
How to Hide “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” Notifications on MacOS Ventura & Monterey
Want to get rid of those “Upgrade to macOS Sonoma” alerts that pop up on your Mac? Here’s how to do that:
- Open the “Terminal” application on the Mac, found in /Applications/Utilities/ or through Spotlight
- At the command prompt, enter the following command exactly:
- Hit Enter to execute the defaults command, then exit out of Terminal
defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate MajorOSUserNotificationDate -date "2025-02-07 23:22:47 +0000"
(BTW, the command needs to be entered onto a single line, like this)
This will prevent the notifications from showing up that bug you to install macOS Sonoma, which don’t even have a proper way to say ‘no’ to, only to dismiss. And those upgrade nag notifications are finicky, because if they’re interacted with incorrectly, you may accidentally install macOS Sonoma.
As mentioned before, when you wish to install future updates to macOS Monterey or macOS Ventura, you will need to continue to click on the nearly microscopic ‘more info’ text that is described here, but at least you won’t have the pestering notifications to deal with.
This incredibly useful tip comes to us from LapCatSoftware (via MJTSai) who points out that “The exact date is not significant, as long as it’s sometime in the future”. So if you feel like adjusting the date within the defaults write command even further (or closer), you can do that.
For what it’s worth, my experience with MacOS Sonoma has been mostly positive, and better than my experience with MacOS Ventura. Every Mac user is different though. I do miss MacOS Monterey and the lovely, familiar, and easy to use System Preferences (System Settings is yucky). But the best thing about the Mac is that you can run what works for you, and what works for your workflow! Whether that’s the latest and greatest, or older tried and true operating systems… it’s up to you.