mac | Check Installation Date of Mac OS X
September 21st, 2008 at 17:15I have noticed that there is no real GUI way provided by Apple to check the installation date of Mac OS X.
Some users might be interested in that information, so here an easy and short way to answer that question with the help of Terminal and your favorite editor (vi in this example)
Question:
How can i check the installation date of Mac OS X on my Apple computer.
Solution:
- Open Terminal.app ( in /Applications/Utilities/ )
- Enter: vi /var/log/OSInstall.custom
This should open a file with a timestamp similar to this:
Note:
I have tested this in Mac OS X 10.5 (10.5.5 actually)
Tags: cli, how to, install, installation date, log, OSInstall.custom, terminal, timestamp, vi
April 18th, 2009 at 06:36
Hi
I have a mac osx 10.4.11 powerPC G5 buy in 2006.
but it report Native install completed 2000-03-26 09:00:13 -0800.??
My computer was not in sale in 2000!
April 18th, 2009 at 14:26
Hi Karl,
could it be that the installation itself is older and just moved to your Mac (i.e. a clone which was migrated to your G5) ?
At least that would be one idea.
So the basic question: did you bought that g5 used or as a new product directly at apple ?
Best regards
fidel
April 20th, 2009 at 02:18
I buy it news from apple. I was thinking it could a clone they probably use something like that but 2000 seem to old to be still in use in 2006!
I see in a other forum one guy say:
this is a known bug (but quite harmless), will be fixed in next release. The timestamp was taken from impoper file-stamp.
that maybe possible?
April 20th, 2009 at 08:13
Hi Karl,
to be honest … i don’t know if there is a known bug with the information stored in this file.
A quick google search didnt really helped me out.
I tested it on several macs here and it seems that the content of the file was correct on all my macs.
If you are still wondering about the date – consider asking at: discussions.apple.com maybe they got more informations / experience regarding this issue.
Best regards
fidel
May 12th, 2009 at 18:19
thank you
July 7th, 2009 at 15:51
thanks a lot, was looking for this tip
July 7th, 2009 at 15:53
np
best regards
fidel
September 28th, 2009 at 17:41
great tip. Needed to write some scripts to check the OS install date on some Macs at work, and this totally did the trick! I can verify that the file no longer exists in Snow leopard. Has anyone found how to accomplish this in 10.6.X
regaurds
Scottch
September 28th, 2009 at 17:46
Hi Scottch,
i have to agree regarding the change in 10.6
One method would be checking the date inside install.log which can be found in
/var/log/install.log
I hope this helps
Best regards
fidel