Reading syslog output on a Mac

Better Stack Team
Updated on June 27, 2023

Same as Linux, MacOS saves system logs into a syslog file. This location of the syslog is /var/log/system.log. On newer MacOS versions, you will find the log at /private/var/log/system.log

You can always check the manual using the man command. For example:

 
man syslog

Monitoring syslog

You can monitor syslog using the following command:

 
tail -f /var/log/system.log

To display the whole file, run the following command:

 
cat /var/log/system.log
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