My install.log file is 10 gigs. This seems a bit big.

[VideoBeagle]

I was looking on my hard drive..My install.log file is 10 gigs. This seems a bit big.
Should it be that big? Should I get rid of it?

 

[throAU]

Mine (Catalina) is 21 megabytes, and this install has been upgraded since 2015.

So yeah, i'd say something is wonky. Maybe the file is corrupted, i'd run a disk scan and if it still 10 GB i'd actually look and see what's in it.

Maybe something repeatedly failing every second or something causing the log to blow out.

Deleting the file in that case won't fix the problem.... figure out what's causing it.

 

[Fishrrman]

First thing I'd do is to delete the 10gb file

Then see what happens...

 

[VideoBeagle]

First thing I'd do is to delete the 10gb file

Then see what happens...

I did do that.. what I could see of it didn't show me problems, and when I tried to open it in bbedit, it just froze the whole computer. 20 hours later, it's 28kb

 

[DeltaMac]

That sounds more normal...
The huge file likely was some kind of runaway process.
The better way to view that log file is through your console. You could simply leave the console window open on that log, and watch if it suddenly "takes off", where you might see the same one or two lines repeat a few hundred times (or thousands + , which is what you likely had)
Might be a one time thing, but no harm watching for that.