Viewing System Logs On Mac Devices


Introduction : Your Mac keeps system logs, which can help diagnose and troubleshoot problems with macOS and your installed applications. On your Mac’s system, these logs are stored as plain-text log files and macOS also includes an app for viewing them.

View System Logs:

1. Launch the Console app to view Mac system logs. Console app can be launched in the following 2 ways:

a. Do a Spotlight search by pressing Command+Space, type “Console” and press Enter.

b. Finder > Applications > Utilities > Console.

2. A list of console messages can be seen by default on your Mac. If you want to see the error messages only, click “Errors and Faults” in the toolbar. If you want to search for a particular error message, you can use the search box.

3. Click “system.log” to view the system log file. You can view the other logs in the:

User Specific Application Log folder : ~Library/Logs

System-wide application log folder: /Library/Logs

Low-Level system services logs: /var/log

The search bar (also works to filter these log files).

4.  Under Reports, more logs can be seen by clicking on “System Reports” for system applications or “User Reports” for user applications. A variety of logs can be seen with file extensions such as .crash, .diag, and .spin. These can be viewed in detail by clicking on them. You may be able to find additional information like why an application crashes on your system here.

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