Finding specific things

What did I install lately?

Updated 2026-10-30 · 4 min read

Finder can sort your apps by when they arrived, and macOS keeps an install history too. Here are four ways to see what landed on your Mac recently, and what each one cannot tell you.

Fastest: sort Applications by Date Added

1. Open Finder and choose Go > Applications (⇧⌘A).
2. Switch to list view with ⌘2.
3. Control-click a column header and tick Date Added.
4. Click the Date Added header until the newest are at the top.

Date Added is the day the item arrived in that folder, so it is the closest thing to an install date for an app you dragged in or that an installer put there. Apple's developer documentation defines it as the date the file was moved into its current location, so moving the app resets it, and an updater that swaps in a whole new copy of the app can too. The same data is visible in Terminal, read-only:

mdls -name kMDItemDateAdded /Applications/Safari.app

On the Mac used for this guide that printed a single date and time. To list apps by that date, newest first:

for a in /Applications/*.app; do echo "$(mdls -name kMDItemDateAdded -raw "$a")  $(basename "$a")"; done | sort -r | head

Apps in ~/Applications or elsewhere are not included. Add that folder to the loop, or use Finder search, which covers them.

Why Date Added, and not Date Created

Finder offers Date Created and Date Modified columns as well, but an app's creation date is often the day its developer built it, not the day it reached your Mac, and a modified date moves with every update. Date Added is the column that records arrival, which is why it comes first here. It has been in Finder since OS X Lion, so every version this guide covers has it.

System Information's Installations list

Hold ⌥, open the Apple menu and choose System Information (it's also in Applications > Utilities). Select Installations under Software in the sidebar. It lists Software Name, Version, Source and Install Date, and the Source column reads Apple, Mac App Store or 3rd Party, so App Store apps, other installer packages and Apple updates all appear. Click Install Date to sort. Apps you dragged in do not appear. The same list from Terminal:

system_profiler SPInstallHistoryDataType | head -40

pkgutil for installer packages

Packages you ran through the macOS installer leave receipts. Every identifier prints with:

pkgutil --pkgs

The list is long, so filter it with part of a name, then ask for one package's details. Pages from the App Store, for example:

pkgutil --pkgs | grep -i pages
pkgutil --pkg-info com.apple.pkg.Pages11

On the Mac used for this guide, the second command showed the version, volume: /, location: / and install-time: 1646531159. That is a Unix timestamp; date -r 1646531159 turns it into a date. Receipts have no app name, only identifiers, so this works best when you already know the package. Where installer receipts are kept explains the files and /Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist, which you can list but should not edit.

The App Store

The App Store app keeps a record of apps tied to your Apple Account. Open it and click your name at the bottom left of the sidebar, which Apple's App Store guide gives as the way to your purchased apps. It shows what you have got from the store, but not install dates on this Mac. Where those apps land is covered in Where Mac App Store apps and downloads go.

Apps outside the Applications folder

Not everything lives in /Applications. Some apps sit in ~/Applications (a folder inside your home folder), on an external drive, or in the Downloads folder because they were run from there. Finder search handles these: press ⌘F, choose This Mac, set the first rule to Kind is Application, and add the Date Added column as above. A command-line package manager keeps its own record of what it installed, which is the place to check for apps it put on the Mac.

Installs versus updates

System Information also lists Apple updates, and many apps update themselves without an installer. A recent Date Modified on an app can mean an update, not a new install. When the question is whether you installed something new, Date Added and the Source column in Installations are better evidence than modified dates.

Drag-installed apps leave no receipt

An app copied from a disk image into Applications leaves no receipt and does not show in System Information or pkgutil. For those, Date Added is the only clue. If the date matters (a suspect install), check it before moving the app.

If you want to remove what you find

Deleting an app often leaves support files behind. Uninstalling Mac apps completely covers that.

Finding apps by date in Everywhere

In Everywhere, type app: and click Newest to order apps by date modified. That is close to install date for a fresh install, but an app that updated itself yesterday also sorts near the top, so cross-check with Date Added. Add dm:<30d to see only apps changed in the last 30 days. Apps inside external drives need Full Disk Access.

Common questions

How do I see recently installed apps on a Mac?

Open Applications in Finder, switch to list view, add the Date Added column and sort by it. System Information's Installations list shows installer and App Store history.

How do I see when an app was installed on a Mac?

Run mdls -name kMDItemDateAdded /Applications/<App>.app for the date it arrived. For installer packages, pkgutil --pkg-info <id> prints the install time.

Where is the Mac install history?

In System Information > Software > Installations (hold ⌥ and open the Apple menu), or /Library/Receipts/InstallHistory.plist.

Why isn't my app in the Installations list?

Apps dragged into Applications from a disk image use no installer, so there is no record. Use the Date Added column instead.