Activity Monitor is the Mac's task manager: the program that shows everything your Mac is doing right now. People coming from Windows often look for "task manager mac" and cannot find it, because on the Mac it has a different name. This article explains how to open Activity Monitor, what the tabs mean and how to use it to find out why your MacBook is slow or hot.
Blue Apple repairs MacBooks in Amsterdam. Activity Monitor is often the first thing we open too when someone says their Mac has "suddenly" become slow.
Opening Activity Monitor
- Via Spotlight: press Command + Space bar, type "activity" and press Return.
- Via the Finder: open Applications, then the Utilities folder, and double-click Activity Monitor.
- Keep it in the Dock: right-click the icon and choose Options, Keep in Dock. From then on it is one click away.
The tabs
- CPU: how much of the processor each program uses. Click the "% CPU" column to sort; at the top is what demands the most.
- Memory: how much memory is in use. Look at the Memory Pressure graph at the bottom: green is fine, yellow means the Mac has to juggle memory, red means you have too little memory for what you do.
- Energy: which apps drain the battery most. Handy when your MacBook suddenly runs down fast.
- Disk: what is being written to and read from the drive.
- Network: what comes in and goes out over the internet.
Stopping a process
Select the process and click the button with the cross at the top. Choose Quit, or Force Quit if it does not respond. Only stop programs you recognise. Processes with names like kernel_task, WindowServer or launchd belong to macOS; do not stop them. A frozen app can also be stopped faster with Command + Option + Esc, see Ctrl-Alt-Delete on a Mac.
What you often see, and what it means
- mds, mds_stores or mdworker high: Spotlight is indexing your files, often after an update or after adding many files. It passes by itself.
- photoanalysisd high: Photos is analysing your library. Also temporary.
- kernel_task high: macOS is slowing the processor down to keep it cool. That means your Mac is getting too hot, for example because of dust in the cooling, blocked vents or a hot environment. See MacBook runs hot or slow.
- A browser using lots of memory: every tab costs memory. Close tabs you are not using.
- An app you do not know that demands a lot: look the name up. Sometimes it is a forgotten helper that starts with the Mac.
Memory pressure red: what now?
Close apps you do not need and restart the Mac once a week. If memory pressure stays red during your normal work, you simply need more memory than your Mac has. On MacBooks with an Apple chip the memory is inside the chip and cannot be upgraded. Then the only help is keeping fewer things open, or a Mac with more memory.
When it is not the software
Is the CPU load low, memory pressure green, and your Mac still slow or the fan loud? Then there may be something with the hardware: a worn battery that throttles the processor, a drive with errors or cooling full of dust. Also open System Information (hold Option in the Apple menu) and check the battery condition under Power.
What we do at Blue Apple in Amsterdam
We measure temperature, battery condition and drive health, and clean the cooling if needed. That tells you whether the problem is in the software or the hardware, before you replace anything. More on our page about MacBook repair in Amsterdam.
Frequently asked questions
What is the task manager on a Mac?
Activity Monitor, in the Utilities folder. It does the same as Task Manager on Windows.
Can I stop processes I do not recognise?
Preferably not. Look up what it is first. Stopping macOS's own processes can freeze your Mac.
Why is kernel_task always high?
A little is normal. If it stays high for a long time while your Mac is warm, the processor is being throttled by heat.
