What is the first task that you do when you get a brand new Mac? Of course, you load it up with your favorite apps. Over time the number of apps increases as you discover new ones that you think will be useful to you. You can see the information about these apps in the App Store on your Mac, but that is just for the apps that were downloaded from the official Mac App Store.
Often, while troubleshooting, you may need to know when an app was installed on your Mac. While it is almost impossible to remember the installation date for each and every app that you install on your Mac, there is a simple workaround that lets you see the app installation history on your Mac.
What it does is let you see when an app was installed on your Mac and whether it came from the official App Store or a third-party website. It is easy to get to that information.
Viewing App Installation History on a Mac
You are not going to use a third-party app to get the job done. Your Mac does keep a list of all the apps along with their installation information, and you can access it using the “System Information” panel.
Hold down the “Option” key on your keyboard, and click on the Apple logo in the top left corner on your screen. You will see a new option called “System Information…” Click on it to be taken to the system information panel.
Here is where you can see all the information about your Mac. From hardware to software, this panel has all the information. Since we are looking for the software information, click on the “Software” option and it will expand with more options.
From the expanded options, click on the one that says “Installations” as that is where all the installation information about your apps is located.
In this panel you can see a list of all the apps that are installed on your Mac. Along with the list you can see their installation dates as well as where they came from (App Store or Third-Party).
If you wish to see the apps in the order they were installed on your machine, simply click on the “Install Date” column to re-sort all the apps by their installation date.
You can also sort apps by where they came from, either the App Store or a third-party website, by just clicking the “Source” column.
Conclusion
Sometimes you may need access to the information about when a particular app was installed on your Mac for various reasons. The guide above should help you get to that information on your Mac.
Mahesh Makvana is a freelance tech writer who’s written thousands of posts about various tech topics on various sites. He specializes in writing about Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android tech posts. He’s been into the field for last eight years and hasn’t spent a single day without tinkering around his devices.
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