One of the main usages of Activity Monitors on Mac is force quitting problem tasks. If your MacBook became too hot and it sounds like a jet ready to launch, you need to know what the culprit is and how to properly handle it.
Activity Monitor for Mac Activity Monitor is a little know gem of an app hidden in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder. It can look daunting when you first launch it but once you look.
- About the root user in Activity Monitor. Even though the root account is 'disabled' by default in OS X, you will still see many system processes running under this account when you open Activity.
- Mar 17, 2019 You can open Mac using finder, spotlight, and Dock. These are the three specified ways that will help you to open the Activity monitor also known as Task Manager Mac. Using Task Manager Mac (Activity Monitor) is the easiest task that you would have ever come across. It is very similar to using the windows task manager app or the software in the.
- Aug 29, 2011 Question: Q: Is this normal Activity (Monitor) for MacBook Pro with Lion? I did a clean install of Lion, and manually moved over my iTunes, iPhoto and Documents; everything else is new. Lion is sometimes laggy on my mid-2009 MacBook Pro bought in early 2010 (with 4 GB RAM, and 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo). So I'm wondering, is the following activity.
- Dec 20, 2016 To monitor CPU usage on a Mac, keep Activity Monitor on the CPU tab. You can watch the total CPU usage of individual apps in the list and total utilization in the little graph at the bottom called CPU Load. Also at the bottom you can see what percentage of CPU is currently being used by the system and user and the idle process.
- Sep 22, 2017 Right-click on the Activity Monitor icon in the Dock. In the menu, choose Options and then click Keep in Dock. The Activity Monitor will be available from the Dock of your Mac, so you can view it easily. How to use the Activity Monitor. The Activity Monitor is a simple but very important tool. Find out what you can do with its help.
To know what to quit on Mac, first use the Activity Monitor to identify the process that is using too many resources. Make sure that it is not a system process, such as watchdogd. Terminating system processes can destabilize the Mac.
All processes on Mac belong to either user or system processes.
Quitting system processes is rarely a good idea. When a system process is forcefully closed then the entire system may become unstable.
Quitting user processes usually does not have such dramatic consequences, but be aware of other drawbacks. When apps forcefully quit (closed) they do not have the opportunity to perform all the things they usually do when closed in regular fashion: save the work and clean up.
For instance, if you quit Word or any other text editor which is stuck showing a spinning wheel, you most likely lose all changes you have done since the last save.
You can always start the program again if it’s a user program. In case of the processes that run on the background, they may come back again either when triggered by other apps or after rebooting the Mac.
Following is my 5-step process to analyze what to quit on Mac.
Identify the programs that using too much CPU
Activity Monitor is a Task Manager equivalent on Mac. One can use it to identify the processes that taking too much CPU.
To launch Activity Monitor use the Spotlight Search. Hold Command key and hit the Space bar. In the search window type “Activity Monitor” and then click on the app from the dropdown list.
The program has multiple tabs and the first one is CPU.
To identify the program that need to be quit, click on CPU tab. Then click on CPU% column twice to order by how much processor the tasks are using in descending order.
In the top left corner of Activity Monitor there are two icons. First, that looks like a stop sign with ‘X’, is called Force Quit and used to terminate apps. If you highlight the process and then click on Force Quit button the Mac will display a warning.
Another icon with ‘i’ symbol provides some basic information about the program and can be used to determine if this is a system or user app.
Identify the programs using too much energy
Another thing to watch on MacBooks is Energy Usage.
To find out which process is draining the battery check Energy pane in Activity Monitor. Sort processes by Energy Impact column.
Higher numbers in this column indicate programs that use the most energy. If the battery time on the MacBook is shorter than usual, consider closing the apps with the highest Energy Impact values.
However, I prefer another way. Locate the battery icon in the menu bar (a bar at the top of the screen. It’s usually next to time or WiFi icons.
Now, hold the Option (⌥) key and click on the battery icon. It will display the apps that are using too much energy and draining the battery.
Use Google to research what the process does
Although it is possible to end almost any process in Activity Monitor, run some research first on Google.
Window Server Mac Activity Monitor
For instance, if the WindowServer is taking too much CPU quick search will reveal that WindowServer is a system process that is responsible for drawing screen in macOS, so quitting it will not be a good move.
Mac Activity Monitor Shortcut
By the way, if you wondering why WindowServer is taking so much CPU it really means that you have an application that constantly redrawing the screen by sending commands to WindowServer process. Very often, it’s some kind of game.
Avoid quitting system tasks
Another process you should never end is kernel_task. If you kill then your Mac’s screen will turn white which can only be fixed by a reboot.
In fact, you should try never to quit any system processes because this may cause OS to crash. Sometimes the system services can restart after terminating, but sometimes not.
To find out if theprocess is system click on Activity Monitor and select View -> System Processes in the menu bar.
Here is the list of other system processes that run on Macs and may sometimes cause CPU spikes:
Note that most processes in the table end with “d” which means they daemons – services running on the background. Usually, daemons are the macOS tasks and they are safe.
Mac Activity Monitor Hacked Iphone
But hackers are smart, and they often name their malware, so they look like parts of the system. The next section is about viruses and malware.
Identify suspiciousactivity and malware
Since Activity Monitordisplays all processes running on your Mac, it’s a great tool to identifysuspicious activity on the computer.
For instance, here I explained how to spotkeyloggers (applications that spy after you).
Also, there is a possibility that someone was able to connect to your Mac as another unauthorized user.
To see the processes that were not started under your account or root (system) go to the menu bar and select View -> Other User Processes. I wrote an article that describes how to spot if someone is accessing your Mac.
How to identifymalware in Activity Monitor?
While using antivirus software is a better approach to malware identification, it is possible to use Activity Monitor to find and delete certain malware without an anti-malware program.
For instance, if you have MacPerfomance malware running on your MacBook, then do the following:
- Start Activity Monitor
- In the search bar type “macperformance”
- Click on the process and then click on “i” icon in the toolbar
- In the information window click on Sample button
- Use Command-F keys to search for “Path”, e.g. /users/xxx/Libraries/UpdateMac/Macperformance
- Close the Sample window and click on Quit button to end the process
- Delete the folder at the path found in step 5
- Reboot Mac
Should you quit apps on Mac? Final Thoughts
Generally, it’s better not to force quit (terminate) running processes.
If the app displays as Non-responding in Activity Monitor, it’s best to wait several minutes to see if it becomes responsive again. If this does not work, then terminate the app, but be prepared to lose the work you’ve done in the app.
If you find yourselfconstantly quitting the same app, then it might mean that the app is corrupted,and you may need to reinstall it.
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