What is ReportCrash?

2008-11-03 17:00

ReportCrash runs whenever an app crashes on your Mac. Its job is to record what went wrong.

What does it do?

When an app or system process stops working, ReportCrash (or ReportCrash.Root for system-level crashes) saves a report. The report captures the state of the crashed program: which functions were running, what threads were active, which libraries were loaded, and what error occurred.

What happens when an app crashes?

The program stops
The system triggers ReportCrash
It writes a crash report file
macOS may ask if you want to reopen the app and send the report to Apple

Where are crash reports saved?

For user apps: ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/
For system processes: /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/

You can also find them in Console.app under Crash Reports.

What about ReportMemoryException and ReportSystemMemory?

ReportMemoryException creates reports when an app is killed for using too much memory. This happens more on Macs with less RAM.
ReportSystemMemory records when the whole system runs low on memory and macOS has to kill processes to free some up.

Does it use many resources?

For a short time, yes. Writing a crash report for a large app can take a few seconds of processor time and a fair bit of memory. If an app keeps crashing and restarting in a loop, ReportCrash will run over and over.

Should you worry?

No. ReportCrash is the messenger, not the problem. If you see it often, look at which apps are crashing rather than at ReportCrash itself.

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