Basic macOS diagnostics — System Report and Console
The point here isn't fixing the problem yourself — it's being able to describe it clearly. A few basic details from System Report and Console can save real time when you report an issue to IT, no command line required.
What's worth checking before reporting
Open System Report
Click the Apple menu → About This Mac, then the "More Info" or "System Report" button (the exact wording varies slightly between macOS versions, but it always starts from "About This Mac"). This opens a window with full technical details about your computer.
Note down the model, macOS version, and serial number
The "About This Mac" panel shows the model name, the installed system version, and the device's serial number. Including these three details in an IT report lets us know exactly what hardware we're dealing with right away.
Open the Console app
You'll find it in Finder → Applications → Utilities → Console. It's the app that continuously collects messages from the system and other apps — something like the Mac's event log.
Note the time the problem happened, not the content of every line
Console shows a huge number of technical entries you don't need to understand. It's enough to remember the exact time the problem occurred (e.g. "the app froze at 2:32 PM") — that's the single most useful piece of information you can pass along.
Take a screenshot if you see a specific error message
Cmd+Shift+4 lets you select part of the screen and save it as an image file. A screenshot with the exact wording of an error tells the IT team far more than a description like "it said something about an error".
Why bother with this at all
The goal of these steps isn't to fix the problem yourself — it's to gather a handful of specifics: the model, the system version, the exact time, and a screenshot if there is one. A report that includes those details gets resolved faster than a general "something isn't working".
When it's a job for IT
- You see repeated error messages in Console and aren't sure what they actually mean.
- The problem involves company hardware or software, not just your personal settings.
- You've already gathered the basic details from this guide and are ready to pass them along.
Want us to check it with you?
Report the issue — it goes straight into our ticketing system, and our AI assistant assesses priority right away.