fseventer
What really happens when you install a new piece of software on your Mac? What files does it look at, what files does it modify?
How about running apps? What are they really up to behind your back?
Fseventer displays a graphical view of real-time file system activity:
To accomplish this, it piggybacks on the same event notifier Spotlight uses. There is a command line tool that does basically the same thing available from Osxbook. Both warn you that Apple could change this interface at any time, but for the moment, it's still there.
The red entries are files or directories that you (the user running fseventer) don't have access to or no longer exist. If you mouse over any element, fseventer wil show you what happened: Content Modified, Deleted, Renamed, etc. It will also tell you the application or process id that was responsible.
The command line tool wasn't compiled as a Universal binary, so I was unable to test it on my Intel Mac. There's also an open source gfslogger but I couldn't reach that site to download source.
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Inexpensive and informative Apple related e-books:
Take Control of Upgrading to Yosemite
Take control of Apple TV, Second Edition
Take Control of Apple Mail, Third Edition
Take Control of Preview
El Capitan: A Take Control Crash Course
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© 2012-07-08 Anthony Lawrence
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fseventer Copyright © April 2006 Tony Lawrence
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