MacOSX randomly prompts for system password

Yes I know it’s from auto update. That’s not my point.

My point is, I was in the middle of typing an email when it popped up which stole focus.

If this is intended behaviour for OSX to just interrupt whatever it is you’re doing or typing at the time to prompt for a password then that’s a pretty bad experience. Even Windows or Linux doesn’t force a password prompt for auto updates.

My question was is it normal behavior for System Update to prompt you for your password before telling you that it will schedule an update for later tonight.

The notification about the Big Sur update came AFTER I cancelled the prompt as I typically do not blindly enter my credentials without know the context of what I am putting my credentials for.

I guess I am the only one who finds it backwards that you are told what System Update needs your credentials for AFTER you have entered them.

It's the standard

"Software Update is trying to authenticate user. Please enter the password for user to allow this." prompt

I know it's for "Software Update" but why would it randomly just pop up THEN tell me Big Sur has an update. I would assume it would be the other way around. A toast notification saying Big Sur has an update. Please click here. I'm not going to enter my system password for a random pop up I was not expecting.

Call me paranoid. lol

That's the first thing that came to mind when I saw it the first time. So I hit cancel rather than typing in my password. Then I got the notification that there was a Big Sur 11.2.1 update that will be installed later that night. So I manually went into System Preferences to check for updates and installed it from there

And it happaned again today for Big Sur 11.2.2 so I figured I would ask here if it was normal behavior. I didn't take a screenshot of it at the time but it is your typical window from OSX that a program needs your password to continue.