What is Mac’s Spindump and How to Use It? [Complete Guide]

Mac computers come equipped with a debugging tool called Spindump, an integral part of the macOS system that aids users in troubleshooting issues with their Mac. When an application crashes, Spindump generates a snapshot of what the application was doing prior to the incident, providing users with a comprehensive view of the problem. This helps in identifying the root cause of the issue and facilitates its resolution. If you're interested in learning more about Spindump, keep reading this guide. In this article, we'll briefly explain the purpose of Spindump and how to use it effectively. Let's get started.

What is Spindump on a Mac?

You might have stumbled upon the Spindump Mac tool for the first time while looking for high CPU usage tasks in the Activity Monitor. We know, because many users find it this way. Spindump is a debugging utility on macOS that takes a snapshot of detailed information about an issue. When an app crashes or becomes unresponsive, Spindump generates a diagnostic log snapshot of the crashed application and stores it in the system.

These logs can be found at the following location on your Mac: /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/. Moreover, the same diagnostic logs are sent to Apple for further investigation of the issue. You can enable the Spindump tool from the Activity Monitor. However, it is automatically launched by the system sometimes when an app misbehaves or starts consuming a significant amount of system resources.

Many users employ this utility to troubleshoot system and application issues. Typically, developers run the Spindump tool because it helps them gain a deeper understanding of problems by reading logs and identifying their root causes. Furthermore, the snapshots or reports contain a wealth of technical details that might be challenging for an average user without technical knowledge to comprehend. However, developers or technical support personnel can easily interpret these snapshots, enabling them to better understand the issue at hand.

Lastly, we should add that using Spindump for Mac is safe. It's part of macOS and won't harm your system in any way.

How to Create/Disable Spindump on Mac?

If you experience an issue with a specific app, you can use the Spindump tool to generate a detailed report while the problem is happening. In this section, we'll explain how to create a Spindump on your Mac in just a few steps.

Step 1: First, open “Finder” and then navigate to the “Applications” section.

Go to the Applications section

Step 2: In the Applications section, go to Utilities, and then open Activity Monitor.

Click on "Activity Monitor".

Step 3. Next, select the specific app or process causing the problem. For example, if an app is crashing, find it in Activity Monitor, and then select it.

4. After you've selected your app, tap on “View” at the top of the screen, then choose Profile with suspended tracing from the dropdown menu to run the suspended trace tool.

Click on Run Spindump:

There you go! Spindump will now monitor the selected app and its behavior. If the app crashes, it will immediately capture a snapshot and share information about what the app was doing at that specific moment.

After taking a snapshot with Spindump, we recommend that you quit it. If left running on your system, it can become one of the most resource-hungry processes. So it's best to quit it to conserve system resources.

Here are the steps to disable the Spindump tool:

Step 1: Restart your Mac and press the Command + R keys as soon as you see the startup screen to enter Recovery Mode.

Step 2: Next, open Launchpad, search for the Terminal app, and launch it.

Step 3: After opening the terminal, run the following command:

"csrutil disable" translates to "Disable System Integrity Protection" in English.

Step 4. After running the above command, type the following command in your terminal application:

Run the following command with administrator privileges: sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.spindump.plist

Step 5: When prompted, enter your Mac password, then in the Terminal app, run the above command to re-enable System Integrity Protection.

This command renames the file `/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.spindump.plist` to `/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.spindump.plist.bak`. In macOS, the `sudo` command is used to run the operation with administrator privileges, and `mv` is the command for moving or renaming a file. This is done to create a backup of the plist file.

Spindump has now been removed from the list of running processes. Your Mac should be running much faster now, and you can verify this using Activity Monitor.

Last Words

Indeed, SpinDump is a handy debugging tool for Mac users. It aids in effortlessly resolving issues with your Mac. In this article, we've explored the SpinDump Mac utility and how to use it. You can enable or disable it as needed, following the steps mentioned above. That's all there is to know about SpinDump. Let us know if SpinDump Mac helped you fix any problems with your Mac.