Enable showing private logs on macOS

On macOS you can enable private data on specific subsystems using a configuration profile. See the discussion of Enable-Private-Data property in SystemLogging.

IMPORTANT Personally I only do this an a ‘victim’ machine, generally one of the VMs that I use for testing. I’m very reluctant to enable private data on a production Mac.

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

Thank You Quinn!

I was able to build a profile using this information, the Configurator 2 app, inspecting some other profiles, and tweaking the generated xml by hand.

It would be nice if the Configurator 2 supported this directly.

Here's what I used - in case someone else wants to do this.

IMPORTANT: Please consider Quinn's warning about using this on a production Mac!

Code Block xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>ConsentText</key>
	<dict>
		<key>default</key>
		<string>This will enable showing private strings and data in Unified Logs.</string>
	</dict>
	<key>PayloadContent</key>
	<array>
		<dict>
			<key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
			<string>ManagedClient logging</string>
			<key>PayloadEnabled</key>
			<true/>
			<key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
			<string>com.apple.system.logging.89AE58D8-0A4A-448B-8AE0-761DEE2D007F</string>
			<key>PayloadType</key>
			<string>com.apple.system.logging</string>
			<key>PayloadUUID</key>
			<string>89AE58D8-0A4A-448B-8AE0-761DEE2D007F</string>
			<key>PayloadVersion</key>
			<integer>1</integer>
			<key>System</key>
			<dict>
				<key>Enable-Private-Data</key>
				<true/>
			</dict>
		</dict>
	</array>
	<key>PayloadDescription</key>
	<string>Allows showing private log messages.</string>
	<key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
	<string>Allow Private Logs</string>
	<key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
	<string>com.yourdomain.enable.private.logs</string>
	<key>PayloadOrganization</key>
	<string>Your Organization</string>
	<key>PayloadRemovalDisallowed</key>
	<false/>
	<key>PayloadType</key>
	<string>Configuration</string>
	<key>PayloadUUID</key>
	<string>529DF49A-6CB3-4DE9-A29F-4C41EC88BFDD</string>
	<key>PayloadVersion</key>
	<integer>1</integer>

Save the above in a text file - give it an extension .mobileconfig - and load it in Configurator 2 - and "sign it"!

This can now be installed on any Mac.

Thanks.
Devendra.

This stopped working at least as of macOS 13.6.2 (22G320).

Any suggestions as to how to enable private logging now? I need it to debug an iOS Service Notification Extension.

A workaround to reveal specific logging is to give it a %{public}@ tag

os_log("UNNotificationServiceExtension thumbnail_url urlString: %{public}@", log: OSLog.debugGeneral, String(describing: urlString))