Log File in Laravel: Location and Common Fixes

• Understanding Laravel Log Files: Location, Common Issues, and Best Practices
• Log File Location and Path in Laravel
• Fixing Permission Denied Issues
  • Solution:
• What to Do When the Log File Is Missing
  • To fix this:
• Fixing the “Could Not Be Opened in Append Mode” Error
  • Steps to Fix:
• Configuring Laravel to Create a Log File Per Day
• Creating a Custom Daily Log Channel
• Verifying Your Log Setup
• Summary
• Final Thoughts

Understanding Laravel Log Files: Location, Common Issues, and Best Practices

Logging is one of the most essential parts of any Laravel application. It helps you track errors, monitor system behavior, and debug effectively. Laravel uses the powerful Monolog library under the hood, offering flexible and configurable logging.

In this guide, we'll cover everything you need to know about Laravel log files including their location, how to resolve permission errors, what to do when logs are missing, and how to configure Laravel to create a log file per day.

Log File Location and Path in Laravel

By default, Laravel stores its log files inside the storage/logs directory. The most common file you’ll see is:

storage/logs/laravel.log

This is where all application logs are written unless configured otherwise.

You can confirm your current log configuration by checking the config/logging.php file. The default channel is typically set to stack, which includes one or more underlying channels such as single or daily:

// config/logging.php
'default' => env('LOG_CHANNEL', 'stack'),

Then, inspect the stack channel to see which log channels it includes:

'stack' => [
    'driver' => 'stack',
    'channels' => ['single'], // or ['daily'] depending on your setup
    'ignore_exceptions' => false,
],

To verify the actual file in use, check the configuration for your target driver. For example, for the single driver:

'single' => [
    'driver' => 'single',
    'path' => storage_path('logs/laravel.log'),
    'level' => env('LOG_LEVEL', 'debug'),
],

Fixing Permission Denied Issues

If you see an error such as:

Could not open stream: Permission denied

it means Laravel does not have permission to write to the log file or the storage/logs directory.

Solution:

Ensure your web server user (e.g., www-data on Ubuntu) has write permissions to the storage directory.

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data storage
sudo chmod -R 775 storage

If you’re on macOS or Windows, make sure your local environment user has equivalent write access.

⚠️ Tip: Never use chmod -R 777 in production unless temporarily necessary. It grants full access to everyone and poses a security risk.

If permission changes don’t take effect, remember to clear your cached configuration:

php artisan config:clear
php artisan cache:clear

What to Do When the Log File Is Missing

Sometimes, your laravel.log file may not exist often because it was deleted or Laravel hasn’t written to it yet.

To fix this:

1. Manually create the file:

   touch storage/logs/laravel.log

2. Ensure correct permissions:

   sudo chown www-data:www-data storage/logs/laravel.log
   sudo chmod 664 storage/logs/laravel.log

3. Try logging a test message:

   Log::info('Laravel log test message');

If everything is configured correctly, Laravel will now start writing to the log file automatically.

Fixing the “Could Not Be Opened in Append Mode” Error

This error typically looks like this:

ErrorException: file_put_contents(/path/to/storage/logs/laravel.log): Failed to open stream: Permission denied

It happens when Laravel tries to write logs but can’t append to the file usually due to missing permissions or directory ownership.

Steps to Fix:

1. Check directory and file permissions:

   ls -ld storage/logs
   ls -l storage/logs/

2. Adjust permissions and ownership as needed:

   sudo chown -R www-data:www-data storage/logs
   sudo chmod -R 775 storage/logs

3. If the problem persists, safely recreate the log file (only if no critical writes are happening):

   rm storage/logs/laravel.log
   touch storage/logs/laravel.log
   sudo chown www-data:www-data storage/logs/laravel.log

After this, reload your application, Laravel will resume logging as usual.

Configuring Laravel to Create a Log File Per Day

For better organization, Laravel supports daily log rotation. This means a new log file is created each day, making it easier to manage and review logs.

To enable daily logging, open config/logging.php and set your default log channel to daily:

'default' => env('LOG_CHANNEL', 'daily'),

Then, locate and configure the daily channel:

'daily' => [
    'driver' => 'daily',
    'path' => storage_path('logs/laravel.log'),
    'level' => env('LOG_LEVEL', 'debug'),
    'days' => 14, // Keep logs for 14 days
],

You can adjust the days value to control how long Laravel keeps old log files before deleting them. Setting days to 0 disables automatic deletion.

When configured, Laravel will automatically generate files like:

storage/logs/laravel-2025-10-09.log
storage/logs/laravel-2025-10-10.log

If you change the LOG_CHANNEL in your .env, run:

php artisan config:cache

Creating a Custom Daily Log Channel

If you need separate log files (for example, one for payment operations), define a custom channel in config/logging.php:

'channels' => [
    'payments' => [
        'driver' => 'daily',
        'path' => storage_path('logs/payments.log'),
        'level' => 'info',
        'days' => 30,
    ],
],

Then use it in your code:

Log::channel('payments')->info('Payment processed successfully.');

Verifying Your Log Setup

After making changes, test your logging configuration:

Log::info('Daily log configuration verified successfully.');

Then check your storage/logs directory, you should see a newly created log file for today.

You can also access the underlying Monolog instance if needed:

$monolog = Log::getLogger();

Summary

Final Thoughts

Laravel’s logging system is robust and highly configurable. By knowing where logs are stored, how to handle permission issues, and how to configure daily or custom channels, you’ll have full control over how your application records information. This ensures cleaner debugging, easier maintenance, and reliable monitoring across all environments.