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How to see when an app was last opened on a Mac

· 6 min read

Select the app in your Applications folder and press Command-I: the Get Info window lists “Last opened” under More Info. To see every app at once, add the Date Last Opened column to Finder’s list view and sort by it. Both show only the most recent time an app was opened. They do not show how often you use it or for how long, which needs a record kept as you go.

Check one app with Get Info

  1. Open Finder and go to the Applications folder (Shift-Command-A).
  2. Click the app once to select it.
  3. Choose File, then Get Info, or press Command-I.
  4. Open the More Info section if it is collapsed. “Last opened” shows the date and time.

If the line is missing or shows two dashes, macOS has no record of the app being opened. Usually that means you never have, though the sections below cover a few other reasons.

See every app at once in Finder

  1. In the Applications folder, switch to list view (Command-2).
  2. Choose View, then Show View Options (Command-J).
  3. Check Date Last Opened.
  4. Click the new column’s header to sort by it. Click again to reverse the order.

You can also Control-click any column header and pick Date Last Opened from the menu that appears.

Sorted with the oldest dates at the top, this is the fastest way to answer “what have I not touched in a year”. Apps in the Utilities folder are listed separately, so open that folder and repeat the steps if you want those too.

Find the apps you have not opened in months

A Smart Folder turns the same information into a saved search:

  1. In Finder, choose File, then New Smart Folder.
  2. Click the plus button at the right, under the search field.
  3. Set the first row to Kind is Application.
  4. Click plus again. Set the second row to Last opened date, choose “is before”, and pick a date, for example six months ago.
  5. Click Save to keep the search in your sidebar.

There is a second place to look. In System Settings, go to General, then Storage, and click the info button next to Applications. The list shows each app with its size and when it was last accessed, which is handy when the real goal is freeing up space. The exact layout varies by macOS version.

The Terminal version

Finder reads these dates from Spotlight’s metadata, and you can ask for them directly. Type the first part of this command, then drag the app from Finder into the Terminal window to fill in its path:

mdls -name kMDItemLastUsedDate /Applications/Example.app

The result is a date and time in UTC, marked +0000, so adjust for your time zone. If it prints (null), there is no record.

A second attribute lists the recent days on which the app was used, one entry per day:

mdls -name kMDItemUsedDates /Applications/Example.app

This is the closest macOS comes to a usage history for an app without Screen Time. It lists days, not times or durations, and how far back it goes varies.

What these dates leave out

The Date Last Opened column is useful, but it is easy to read more into it than it holds:

  • Opened is not used. An app that starts at login gets today’s date even if you never look at it. If a date seems too recent, check login items first.
  • One date, no duration. You learn that the app was opened on Tuesday, not whether you spent five seconds or five hours in it.
  • An app left running keeps an old date. If you open your mail app on Monday and never quit it, Friday’s use does not move the date. It records the launch, not each time you come back.
  • It depends on Spotlight. If indexing is off for a disk, or the app lives on a drive Spotlight skips, the date can be blank.

One other built-in place adds a little: Screen Time. If App and Website Activity is on in System Settings, Screen Time shows time per app for recent days and weeks. It gives totals rather than the clock times of each visit. How to use Screen Time on a Mac for work, and where it falls short goes through it.

When you need a history, not one date

Sometimes the question is bigger than a single date. Did I open the accounting app at all last week? How long was I really in the editor on Thursday? When did I stop using that note-taking app I am still paying for? macOS does not keep that kind of history in a form you can read back, so it has to be recorded as it happens.

Punchcard is a Mac menu bar app that notices which app is in front during your day, by app name only, and prints a receipt at the closing time you set: your top five apps with a time on each line, the rest as MISC, and a day total. It needs no macOS permissions to work, and there are no timers to start or stop.

For this question, the useful part is the CSV export. It has one row per session: start, end, app, idle and seconds. Open it in a spreadsheet and filter for one app, and you have every stretch that app was in front, with clock times and lengths. Count the rows to see how often you came back to it; sum the seconds to see how long you spent. Export your time data to CSV and keep it forever covers getting the file.

The limits, plainly:

  • The record begins the day you install Punchcard. It cannot tell you about last month.
  • It records the app in front, not everything that is running. An app that sits open behind other windows all day adds nothing until you switch to it.
  • It records app names, never window titles or document names. You will know the spreadsheet app was in front from 2:10 to 3:40, not which file was open.
  • Everything is stored in one file on your Mac. Tracking never expires and the CSV export works without a license; the first two printed receipts are free, and printing after that is a $9 one-time license.

If the record ever shows a name you do not recognize, the receipt lists an app you never opened explains the usual causes.

Questions

Why is Date Last Opened blank for some apps? Either the app has never been opened on this Mac, or Spotlight has no metadata for it. Apps on a disk that is excluded from Spotlight indexing are the common second case.

Does the date change when an app opens by itself at login? Generally yes. macOS records the launch, not whether you were the one who asked for it or whether you ever looked at the window.

Can I see how many times I opened an app? Not from Finder. The used-dates attribute in Terminal lists recent days, and Screen Time shows time per app, but neither counts launches. A session record such as Punchcard’s CSV lets you count the rows for an app.