Track Files Accessed by Applications on MacOS

Posted: 2024-06-18
Tags: MacOS, Xcode

Curious about what an application is doing, or where it is storing things?

Launch Instruments by either opening it directly from /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Applications/Instruments.app

Or…

• Open Xcode
• Open the Xcode menu, select Open Developer Tool
• Click Instruments

Select File Activity, click Choose

In the upper left, the current machine name will be listed and next to it by default will probably say All Processes.

• Click All Processes to open the drop down
• Click Choose Target...
• Find the application to monitor and select it.

When ready, click the red record button. This will launch the application (and probably prompt for administrator credentials).

Do whatever in the application, and then exit. This will trigger Instruments to process the trace.

The Disk Usage tab of the navigation bar will give a complete list of files interacted with by the application.