What Is ~/Library/Logs on Mac?
Your user folderUpdated
- Full path
~/Library/Logs
- Scope
- Your user folderInside your home folder — one copy per user account.
- Freshist & this folder
- Freshist checks this folder when uninstalling an app. When you uninstall an app, Freshist looks here for items that belong to it. Matches on the app's bundle ID can be pre-selected; name-only guesses are labeled “not sure” and never pre-selected. Removed items go to the Trash, so you can undo.
From Freshist's own cleaning rules — the same catalog the app uses.
What you'll find here
Apple's file system guide describes Logs as containing "log files for the console and specific system services," which you can also read in the Console app. In practice the folder mixes three things:
| Item | Written by | Typical size |
|---|---|---|
DiagnosticReports/ | macOS, when an app crashes or hangs | Kilobytes per report |
| Folders named after apps | Apps that write their own log files | From kilobytes to hundreds of MB |
Service folders (CoreSimulator, JetBrains…) | Developer tools and background services | Varies with use |
Expect anything from a few megabytes upward; one Mac we checked had about 8 MB across 20 entries. A developer machine running simulators daily can carry far more.
How it relates to Console
The Console app has a Reports section with Crash Reports, Spin Reports, Log Reports and Diagnostic Reports. Several of these are the files from ~/Library/Logs and ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports. Apple's Console guide notes you can select a report and choose File → Move to Trash to delete it from there, which is a tidy way to clear specific reports.
The live stream you see when you start Console is different: that's the unified log, which macOS stores elsewhere and trims automatically. It isn't in this folder.
What deleting logs changes
Nothing that affects how apps run. You lose history: if an app has been misbehaving, its logs are the evidence a support team will ask for. Crash reports are also what lets you see which app crashed and when. Apps recreate their log files on next launch.
Inspecting it read-only
du -sh ~/Library/Logs
du -sh ~/Library/Logs/* 2>/dev/null | sort -h | tail -10
ls -lt ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports | head
The last command lists the newest crash and hang reports first.
Clearing it
- Quit the apps whose logs you want to clear, so they aren't writing at that moment.
- For crash reports, open Console, select reports under Reports, and choose File → Move to Trash, or remove files from
~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReportsin Finder. - For app logs, choose Go → Go to Folder… in Finder, enter
~/Library/Logs, and trash the subfolders or files you no longer need.
Clearing the contents is better than deleting the Logs folder itself, which macOS and apps expect to exist.
When uninstalling an app
Log folders for apps you've removed are pure leftovers. They're usually small, but some reach hundreds of megabytes. Logs are also a cleanable category on their own: see logs and crash reports. System-wide logs in /Library/Logs need administrator rights and are covered with system caches.
Sources
- View reports in Console on Mac, Apple Support
- macOS Library Directory Details, Apple File System Programming Guide
- Logging, Apple Developer Documentation
Frequently asked questions
Does clearing ~/Library/Logs remove the macOS system log?
No. The unified log that Console shows live is stored by macOS in a separate system location and manages its own size. ~/Library/Logs only holds files that apps and services wrote for your account.
Why does one app have hundreds of megabytes of logs here?
Some apps log verbosely and never rotate or delete old files, especially after a bug or a debug setting. Check the app's settings for a logging level, or report it to the developer.
Should I send crash reports from DiagnosticReports to developers?
Only if you choose to. They can include file paths and app names from your Mac, so read one before sharing it. Console's Reports section shows them in readable form.