outboundctl license

outboundctl license activates, checks and releases your Outbound licence from Terminal. It uses the same licence and keychain item as Settings › License. The licence lives in the signed-in user’s keychain, so run these commands as that user, without sudo.

Activating a licence

outboundctl license activate -

With -, outboundctl asks for the key without showing it (“License key:”), so the key never appears on screen or in your shell history. You can also pipe the key in; the first line of standard input is read. Activation goes through Outbound’s background agent, and the key goes to the agent and nowhere else.

You can pass the key as an argument instead (outboundctl license activate <key>), but it then stays in your shell history, and outboundctl warns you.

When it works: “License activated on this Mac.” Other replies you may see:

• “This license is already active on this Mac.”
• “Another license is already active on this Mac. Deactivate it in Outbound Settings › License first.”
• “That license key wasn’t recognized. Check it against your purchase email.”
• “This license is already active on all the Macs it covers. Deactivate it on another Mac, or contact support.”
• “Outbound couldn’t reach the license server. Check your connection and try again.”

If the agent stops before activation finishes, run outboundctl license status to see whether it went through.

Checking the licence

outboundctl license status

Prints the state, whether the licence is managed by your organisation, and a masked key identifier showing only the last four characters. Add --json or --output json for structured output.

Releasing the licence

outboundctl license deactivate

Releases the licence on this Mac, so you can use it on another one.

Managed licences

On a Mac whose licence is set by your organisation through MDM (LicenseKey), activate and deactivate are refused with “This license is managed by your organization.” (exit 77). To license many Macs, deploy a forced LicenseKey instead; see managed preferences.

Exit status

0 on success, including a licence that was already active. 1 for other failures, such as a licence already active on all the Macs it covers or a keychain problem. 64 for a usage error, 65 for a key that is not valid or not recognised, 69 when the agent or the licence server can’t be reached, and 77 when activation is refused, for example under sudo or on a managed Mac.