MacBook – How to find activity log with time stamps of when applications were opened and closed on MacBook Pro

consolemacbook pro

Is it possible to see a log of when any given application was opened, running, and then closed on my MacBook Pro? For example something that would show the messages app was opened at 3:00 pm and then closed at 3:30 pm etc. I've seen some stuff about maybe using Console but I don't know how to use that. Any guidance would be helpful. Thanks!

Max

Best Answer

The console app is in your utilities folder which is in your Applications folder. This app is for browsing thru log files. To find when an application was started open the console app and click on Mac Analytics Data on the left side of the console app. Then you can search for the name of the app you are looking for. See the image below. I started the app Preview at around 7:16 pm

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This file does not give STOP time but that may be in a different log file.