ASP.NET Core – How to turn off startup logging

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When you launch an ASP.NET Core web app, you may see the following startup logging messages:

info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0]
      Now listening on: https://localhost:12345
info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0]
      Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.
info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0]
      Hosting environment: Development
info: Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime[0]
      Content root path: D:\TestProject\Code language: plaintext (plaintext)

These messages come from having a console logger. This logger gets added by default.

There are two simple ways to get rid of these logging messages:

I’ll show both options below.

Option 1 – Turn off logging in appsettings.json

In appsettings.json (or appsettings.Development.json), set Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime to None:

{
  "Logging": {
    "LogLevel": {
      "Default": "Information",
      "Microsoft": "Warning",
      "Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime": "None"
    }
  }
}
Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

Note: This is assuming you’re loading in appsettings.json.

This disables the startup logging messages.

Option 2 – Remove the default logging providers

The framework adds multiple logging providers by default, including a console logger. This is what outputs the startup messages you’re trying to remove. To get rid of these startup messages, remove the console logger with builder.Logging.ClearProviders() in the initialization code:

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// rest of adding services

builder.Logging.ClearProviders();

var app = builder.Build();

// rest of init code

Code language: C# (cs)

This gets rid of the startup logging messages. It gets rid of all of the default logging providers. You can re-add the loggers you want.

Clearing logging providers before .NET 6

They simplified the initialization code in .NET 6. Before .NET 6, clear the logging providers in Host.CreateDefaultBuilder() like this:

public class Program
{
	public static void Main(string[] args)
	{
		CreateHostBuilder(args).Build().Run();
	}

	public static IHostBuilder CreateHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
		Host.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
			.ConfigureWebHostDefaults(webBuilder =>
			{
				webBuilder.UseStartup<Startup>()
				.ConfigureLogging(loggingBuilder => loggingBuilder.ClearProviders());
			});
}
Code language: C# (cs)

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