My iMac was turned off when I found it this morning, can I find out when?

[MR_Boogy]

I put my iMac 5k to sleep on Friday (99% sure) and when I can back to it this morning, it was powered down. Nobody else has physically been in the room and when it rebooted there was no "your Mac shut down because of a problem" popup (though Chrome did display the 'restore tabs?" popup).

Our area did have power issues over the weekend but I'm not aware our house had any - no clocks flashing or anything.
Is it possible to see when it was last shut down and how? If it was an unexpected shutdown, is there any way to find when it was last running before it did shutdown?

I had a system crash last week so I am on high alert in case there could be a hardware issue since it's new - thanks.

 

[laptech]

You need to look in the imac's control logs. This website shows and tells you how

Problem with your Mac? Check the system logs! - ChrisWrites.com

When your Mac goes wrong, the first step to fixing the problem, is working out what caused it in the first place! One option, is to check your system logs

www.chriswrites.com

 

[MR_Boogy]

You need to look in the imac's control logs. This website shows and tells you how

Problem with your Mac? Check the system logs! - ChrisWrites.com

When your Mac goes wrong, the first step to fixing the problem, is working out what caused it in the first place! One option, is to check your system logs

www.chriswrites.com

Ah yes I'd forgotten this app. Sadly though, it doesn't even seem to mention the crash last week which the OS did report. I even clicked the "report to Apple" button at the time. If there's information in there I can't find it anyway!

I tried `last reboot` / `last shutdown` from Terminal but of course this doesn't catch unexpected cases.

If it were simply a power outage, would there be any logs at all? I am guessing not, unless I can find a gap in a system log and use the last log entry as an approximate time?

 

[laptech]

Ah yes I'd forgotten this app. Sadly though, it doesn't even seem to mention the crash last week which the OS did report. I even clicked the "report to Apple" button at the time. If there's information in there I can't find it anyway!

I tried `last reboot` / `last shutdown` from Terminal but of course this doesn't catch unexpected cases.

If it were simply a power outage, would there be any logs at all? I am guessing not, unless I can find a gap in a system log and use the last log entry as an approximate time?

When in the console app, select systemlog and it will display a log full of dates and what took place on that day. Now take a look at the dates of each log entry and find where one day ends and the other day starts. When you do this, as it gets closer to the one day ending you will see a system instruction that indicates the shutdown time. Here is an exmaple of what appears on my

May 4 16:17:14 users-imac shutdown[1131]: SHUTDOWN_TIME (then a bunch of numbers)
May 13 08:35:37 localhost bootlog[0]: BOOT_TIME (then a bunch of numbers)

You will see this entry in the log for every time the computer was turned on and when it was turned off. In my example you can see I shutdown the machine on May 4 at 4:17pm and didn't switch it back on again till May 13 at 8:35am

You should have the same in your log. Just look for the day(s) in the log you think the machine shutdown because the very next entry should be the day you turned it back on again. Then you will be able to see which day and what time the machine shutdown.

 

[960design]

Shutdown time
Console app > system.log > Search (top right) shutdown_time

Restart time
Console app > system.log > Search (top right) boot_time

Terminal
type command: last reboot

 

[laptech]

Shutdown time
Console app > system.log > Search (top right) shutdown_time

Restart time
Console app > system.log > Search (top right) boot_time

Terminal
type command: last reboot

Just to note, you have to double click on the systemlog for the systemlog window to open and THEN use the search option otherwise it will not work.

 

[960design]

Just to note, you have to double click on the systemlog for the systemlog window to open and THEN use the search option otherwise it will not work.

Does not single clicking open sys log in default window? Double clicking does open a separate window, but not necessary. Maybe I have some tap click default changed.

 

[laptech]

Does not single clicking open sys log in default window? Double clicking does open a separate window, but not necessary. Maybe I have some tap click default changed.
View attachment 1920347

Your screenshot has exposed the difference. My imac is using Catalina which uses the old way of doing things, hence the need to double-click.