Useful macOS defaults: Crash Reporter

com.apple.CrashReporter controls how macOS handles crash reports when an app stops working.

Switch to notification-style crash reports

By default, when an app crashes, macOS shows a dialog box in the middle of the screen asking if you want to reopen the app and report the problem. You can change this to a quieter notification instead:

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter UseUNC -bool true

UNC stands for User Notification Centre. With this on, crash reports appear as a small notification banner rather than a blocking dialog.

To go back to the dialog box:

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter UseUNC -bool false

Turn off crash report dialogs entirely

If you do not want to see crash dialogs at all:

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType -string "none"

Crash reports are still written to ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/. You just do not get asked about them.

Other options for DialogType:

• crashreport (the default, shows the full dialog)
• basic (shows a simpler dialog)
• server (no dialog, used on servers)
• none (no dialog at all)

To go back to the default:

defaults delete com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType

Notes

Crash reports are useful for developers. If you turn off dialogs, the reports still exist on disk. You can find them in Console.app under Crash Reports, or browse to ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/ in Finder.

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