They appear as updates in the Software Update pane. These smaller updates contain security patches and other fixes. For example, if it says you have macOS Mojave version “10.14.1” installed, this means you have Mojave with the “.1” update installed. In the screenshot below, we have version 10.14 of macOS Mojave installed.
If you see “macOS Monterey” and version “12.0”, you have Monterey, As long as it starts with “12.”, you have Monterey installed. The name and version number of your Mac’s operating system appears on the “Overview” tab in the About This Mac window.
