Open your Applications folder and you will see the apps you installed, plus the handful Apple actually wants you to use. But there is another folder buried in macOS, and it is full of hidden Mac apps that Apple builds, ships with every machine, then quietly hopes you never go looking for.
Some of these secret Mac apps are genuinely useful. One is a password manager Apple now actively warns you against opening. And a couple only still exist because nobody at Apple has got round to deleting them. If you enjoyed poking through hidden Apple apps on the iPhone, think of this as the Mac equivalent. Here are ten worth knowing about, and how to find the folder they live in.
How to find Apple's hidden apps folder on your Mac
The folder does not appear anywhere in Finder by default, and Spotlight will not surface most of what is inside it unless you already know the exact app name. Here is how to open it:
- Open Finder.
- Press Command, Shift and G to bring up the Go to Folder prompt.
- Paste in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications
- Press Return.
You will land in a folder full of built-in macOS apps that show up nowhere else on your Mac. They are missing from your main Applications folder and effectively invisible to everyday searching, so they just sit there waiting for anyone who knows where to look.
The hidden Mac apps actually worth using
A few of these are the kind of thing you will wish you had known about years ago.
Feedback Assistant is Apple's official bug reporting tool, and it is what every developer and beta tester uses to send issues straight to Apple. If you have ever run a beta version of macOS, this is the app quietly collecting crash logs and system diagnostics in the background whenever something breaks. You can create a new report, attach a sysdiagnose, drop in screenshots, and send the lot directly to Apple's engineering teams. With a fresh round of betas always arriving around WWDC, it is worth knowing this exists before something falls over.
Wireless Diagnostics is the app you should be reaching for the next time your Wi-Fi drops out for no obvious reason. Instead of restarting your router for the third time, you can run this to monitor the connection, look for problems, and generate a report on what is actually going wrong. The full output gets technical fast, but a basic scan is straightforward and will tell you things like which channel your router is broadcasting on, or whether something nearby is interfering. It is buried in this folder, yet it is the same tool Apple support would walk you through if you ever called them.
Folder Action Setup is the most useful app in here, in my opinion. It lets you tell macOS to run a script automatically whenever a file lands in a specific folder, so you could set up one folder that compresses any image dropped into it, or another that renames every file added. There is a well-known paid app called Hazel that does exactly this, and Apple has shipped a free version for years that almost nobody knows about. The catch is that the scripts are AppleScript based, an older automation language Apple has been winding down, but it still works and runs quietly once set up.
Archive Utility is the app that has handled every ZIP file you have ever opened on a Mac. Normally it runs in the background, extracts your files, then disappears, so most people never realise it is separate software. Launch it directly and it has actual settings: you can change the default archive format, choose where extracted files go, or have it delete the original ZIP after extraction. That last one is handy if you work with compressed files regularly.
Desk View is one you may have used without realising it. If you have ever used Continuity Camera to turn your iPhone into a webcam, Desk View uses the ultra-wide lens to give a top-down view of your desk, so you can show someone what you are working on without rigging up a second camera. Most people have only met it as a tickbox inside Zoom or FaceTime, but it runs as a standalone app from this folder with no video call needed. For recording tutorials or demoing something on your desk, it is a tidy little tool.
The password app Apple wants you to forget
Keychain Access is the one I find most interesting, because Apple is actively trying to make you forget it is there. For over two decades this was where every password on your Mac lived, from Wi-Fi credentials to website logins to encryption certificates.
Then in 2024 Apple launched the new Passwords app alongside macOS Sequoia and started funnelling everyone towards that instead. Keychain Access is still here, though, and it still handles things the new Passwords app cannot, including network credentials and certificates that simply do not appear in the newer app.
The giveaway is what happens when you open it. macOS now throws up a prompt asking whether you meant to open the Passwords app instead, which is a fairly clear signal about where Apple would rather you spent your time.
Hidden Mac apps built for work and IT
A couple of these system apps only make sense if your machine has ever been managed by a proper IT department.
Directory Utility configures the connection between your Mac and an Active Directory or Open Directory server. If your work laptop was ever bound to one of those, this is the app that handled it. Many organisations have moved on from Active Directory, especially with Apple pushing its revamped Apple Business Manager for managing fleets of Macs, so for most people this one now sits idle.
Ticket Viewer has the best icon in the folder and a similarly niche job: managing Kerberos tickets. Kerberos is an authentication protocol big organisations use so staff sign in once and then reach internal systems all day without retyping a password. If your email, calendar and shared drives have ever just worked after logging into your work Mac, Kerberos was probably behind it, and Ticket Viewer lets you see, renew or destroy those tickets. For most people the honest answer to whether you need it is no.
Hidden Mac apps that exist purely for legacy reasons
Then there are the two that genuinely do nothing for the vast majority of Macs.
DVD Player still ships with macOS in 2026, despite the last Mac with a built-in optical drive being the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Pro. You can launch it and it will sit there waiting for a disc you have no way of inserting without buying a separate USB drive. Digital DVD files open in QuickTime by default, so this app is effectively just hanging around.
Expansion Slot Utility manages PCIe expansion cards on the Mac Pro, the tower Apple has now discontinued. If you are on a MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini or Mac Studio, it can do nothing at all, because there are no PCIe slots for it to manage. Apple still ships it with every new Mac for now, and presumably it will only disappear once the M2 Mac Pro becomes a fully legacy machine.
So which ones should you actually open?
If you take just three from this list, make them Wireless Diagnostics, Folder Action Setup and Feedback Assistant, since those solve real problems you will hit on a modern Mac. The rest are worth poking at out of curiosity, and the folder holds a few more apps beyond these ten, so it is worth opening and having a look around. And if this has given you a taste for Apple's lesser-known tools, I rounded up the free Apple apps missing from your iPhone in a separate post. At least now you know these hidden Mac apps are there.
FAQ
Where is the hidden apps folder on a Mac?
It lives at /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications. Open Finder, press Command, Shift and G, paste that path in and press Return to see the apps that do not appear in your normal Applications folder.
Why does Apple hide these Mac apps?
Most are support tools, legacy utilities or background helpers that the average user never needs to launch directly. Apple keeps them out of the main Applications folder to avoid clutter, not because they are dangerous.
Is it safe to open these hidden Mac apps?
Yes. They are all made by Apple and ship with macOS, so opening them to have a look does no harm. Just be cautious about changing settings in the IT-focused tools like Directory Utility if you do not know what they do.
Should I still use Keychain Access instead of the new Passwords app?
For everyday logins, the Passwords app is the one Apple now steers everyone towards. Keychain Access is still worth keeping in mind for network credentials and certificates, which the newer app does not display.
YouTuber, tech creator and CTO. I write about the apps, gear, and workflows I actually use — and make videos about them too. Get monthly write-ups in The Lovelock Log.
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