Activity Monitor on Mac: How to Open & Use Shortcut

The activity monitor built into macOS: efficiently manage Mac system resources

Similar to Windows' Task Manager, macOS comes with Activity Monitor that displays all running programs on the Mac, including visible applications and hidden backend services. Part of these processes belong to the macOS system itself, and also include background processes of other applications, such as browsers, antivirus software, and VPN clients.

This guide will explain how to turn on the activity monitor on your Mac and explain its multiple uses:

• End the application
• Check process
• Operation Diagnostic Report
• Identify malware
• Save battery power
• Restrict network usage

What is activity monitor?

Activity Monitor is a task manager for Mac. It displays a complete list of all running processes on the machine and how many system resources each program is using. You can use Task Manager on your Mac for a variety of purposes:

• Force ending the application that is stuck and cannot be closed normally.
• See which applications and processes cause the system to slow down.
• Operation diagnostic report.
• Find hidden spyware and surveillance applications on your Mac.
• Identify background processes that should not be run.
• See which applications are using the network.

How to turn on activity monitor on Mac?

There are several ways to start the activity monitor:

1. In the Finder, navigate to "Applications > Utility". Locate and start Activity Monitor.
2. Another shortcut is to open "Focus Search" first (click the magnifying glass icon in the Mac menu bar, located in the upper right corner of the screen). Enter "Activity Monitor" and press Enter> key to open it.
3. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Command Space to bring up the Focus Search and type "Activity Monitor" to find and access Task Manager on your Mac.

How to use Activity Monitor on Mac?

After mastering how to open Task Manager on your Mac, learn how to make the most of it. Here are some of the most commonly used features:

1. End the application in Activity Monitor
2. Check process in activity monitor
3. Run the diagnostic report in the activity monitor
4. Fight malware with Activity Monitor
5. Save MacBook battery power with activity monitor
6. Restrict network usage using activity monitor
7. Other practical ways to act on activity monitor

1. End the application in Activity Monitor

macOS Activity Monitor allows you to end applications and background processes that you don't normally see. This feature is useful if your Mac is running slow or if an application is behaving abnormally.

You only need a few simple steps to end the application in the activity monitor:

1. StartActivity Monitor.
2. View the process list and select the process to end.
3. Click the X symbol at the top of the program window.
4. Select Exit or forcibly exit.
5. You can also double-click the application and click the Exit button to end the application.

2. Check the process in Activity Monitor

Read the Mac Activity Monitor and you can view all information about what you run on your Mac. When your Mac is running slow, this information may help you find applications or background processes that are causing slowing down.

Here is how to check processes on your Mac:

1. In Activity Monitor, find a process in the list and double-click it.
2. This will open a new window. In the Memory tab, you can see how much RAM the process is using.
3. Click "Statistics" to view technical information, including the number of threads used by the process.
4. The Open Files and Ports tab displays the contents stated in its name. You can view the files the application is using at any given time.
5. If you click on "Parent Process", it will open another window with detailed information about the process.

3. Run the diagnostic report in the activity monitor

You can create a variety of diagnostic reports in Activity Monitor, including Spindump (View unresponsive applications that are forced to exit) and Spotlight diagnostics reports based on all running processes on your Mac. If you have problems, providing these reports to Apple support may help.

Here's how to run these reports in Activity Monitor:

1. Open Task Manager on your Mac and click the icon with the three dots .
2. Sampling process, Spindump, System Diagnosis or Spotlight Diagnosis according to the report you want to run.
You may need to enter your
3. Mac password. If so, enter your password and let the report generate.
Finally, you will get a file that can be sent to
4. Apple support .

4. Use Activity Monitor to Fight Malware

Finding and removing malware is an important part of maintaining your Mac's health, especially if you want the best performance. You can usually use Activity Monitor to stop a malicious process running on the machine, but before ending any process, search for the process online to make sure it is not the process required for macOS to run properly.

Here is how to find and close malware using Activity Monitor:

Open
1. Activity Monitor. In the "CPU" tab, click the "%CPU" column to sort the processes by percentage of CPU power they are using. You can also do the same for GPU.
Put the most demanding process at the top and find any process you don't know.
Select any suspicious process and click the
3. X icon at the top of the Activity Monitor to delete it.
Click
4. Exit or forcibly exit.

Related Readings: How to Check for Malware on Mac

5. Save MacBook battery power using activity monitor

When applications and other processes use a lot of power, they slow down your Mac and consume more energy. If you are using a battery-powered MacBook, this may limit the time you can work away from a power outlet. Fortunately, you can use the Activity Monitor to save some power on your Mac.

Check energy usage in the activity monitor using the following steps:

1. Open Activity Monitor and go to the Energy tab.
2. View the Energy Impact tab to see how much power is used for each application.
3. Use the 12 Hours Power tab to see how much energy has been consumed in the past 12 hours.
4. End application that is using a lot of energy.

6. Use Activity Monitor to limit network usage

Most internet providers no longer limit how much data you can download per month, but there are still good reasons to limit network activity on your Mac. Activity monitors are a great way to track which processes are sending and receiving data over the network.

To check what your Mac is downloading and uploading:

1. When you open the Activity Monitor, select the Network tab.
2. Click on the top of the Sent Bytes column to sort from high to low. Pay attention to any larger and unexpected numbers.
3. Perform the same operation on the Received Bytes column.
4. End any application that uses a lot of bandwidth.
5. If you don't know a process, search the Internet for its name to see if it is malware and then run an antivirus scan if necessary.

7. Other practical methods for activity monitors

These are the key ways to use the activity monitor on your Mac, but you can do some other useful actions, such as:

• View real-time CPU, network and disk usage in the Dock.
• Track memory usage with the help of memory pressure graphs to see if more RAM is needed. Please note that not all computers can change RAM.

If your goal is to speed up your iMac or laptop, periodically reduce system storage and delete cache files to ensure you have enough free space, which will keep the system running smoothly.

Remember, Activity Monitor will tell you what is going on on your Mac

Activity Monitor is a useful utility that allows you to gain insight into what is going on on your Mac. It is especially useful when you want to find out what causes the machine to slow down, force exit freezing applications, and worry about getting infected with malware. You can also use MacKeeper's Find and Repair Tool to identify and fix common problems, which scans your computer for potential problems and helps you eliminate them quickly and safely.

The above is the detailed content of Activity Monitor on Mac: How to Open & Use Shortcut. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!