Mints is my new free macOS utility which gives you deeper insights in the system, and helps diagnose problems which have proved refractory using other tools. In its first beta-release, it supported three specialist log browsers, covering iCloud, TCC and privacy, and Time Machine backups. This second beta-release improves those, and adds a feature to scan for Universal Apps and binaries.

The major complaint about the first beta concerned the choice of colours for text in log extracts. Although I intend letting the user customise them, I have tried to address this in its current choices. The first style of log entries is now shown in black/white according to the current appearance, and the other three appear in red, blue and green. You shouldn’t have to be peering at any more grey text in the logs.

The more major improvement is the addition of a Universal Binary Checker. Those already familier with my still-popular utility 32-bitCheck will recognise its origins. This lets you scan a folder of your choice, and reports all apps and executable code which will run natively on Apple Silicon Macs.

This checker uses similar methods to those in the latest version of ArchiChect. However, because it’s intended to scan more substantial folders of apps such as the standard Applications folders, it uses ‘Magic’ as a preliminary test to see whether a Mach-O file supports more than one architecture. If it does, the scanner then uses lipo to determine whether the ARM64 platform is among those supported. Using lipo for every such test proved too costly in time and memory.

At present, whichever hardware platform you might be running a beta of Big Sur on, Universal Apps are in short supply. Apple doesn’t, of course, allow their release through the App Store until shortly before the release of Big Sur. Apart from Apple’s own apps and other executables, I’ve only come across my own, of which there are now 15 which can run native on Apple Silicon.

Because of the system features which it uses, this Universal Binary Checker is only available on macOS Mojave and later, although Mints remains compatible with Sierra and High Sierra too. Rather than supplying separate Intel-only and Universal versions of Mints, this release comes as a full Universal App, so should run native on both Intel and Apple Silicon platforms.

My next goal in the development of Mints is to allow custom log browsers, enabling you to design and incorporate your own.

Mints version 1.0b4 is available now from here: mints1b04
from Downloads above, from its Product Page, and via its auto-update mechanism.