How to Use Activity Monitor on Mac – Guide
Activity Monitor, a macOS application, can help you identify applications or processes that are draining your battery or using too many processor cycles. It also allows you to force shutdown misbehaving apps and see how much power your Mac is consuming. Here’s how to use it.
On your Mac, you can find Activity Monitor in the / Applications / Utility folder. It displays a list of programs and processes running on your Mac, which is updated every five seconds to show changes in usage statistics for each application.
To view the processes associated with a program, click the triangle next to its name. To customize the columns displayed, select View -> Columns from the menu bar and choose your desired columns. The type of speakers available to you depends on whether you’re using a desktop or Mac notebook.
CPU
The CPU tab in your Mac’s Activity Monitor can help you identify processes that are draining battery life or causing overheating. Examining this panel can help you troubleshoot performance issues.
The ‘% CPU’ column is key for identifying processes that could be causing performance issues.
If applications and processes not in use exceed 1%, or those in use exceed the lower two-digit range, this could be the cause of a performance drop.
Memory
The Memory tab may not be as essential as other features, but it still plays an important role in the performance of your Mac. It provides a breakdown of memory usage for all applications running on the device, which can have a direct impact on how quickly the boot drive operates.
Mac users can quickly check their total memory and usage at a glance with the bottom panel of Activity Monitor. If memory usage is close to the limit, it’s likely due to one or two apps at the top of the Memory column.
Energy
Sorting the Energy tab by ‘Power Impact’ reveals which applications are draining your Mac’s battery the most. This can be especially helpful when unplugged, as it allows you to close programs that are using up more energy.
Mac users can now control which apps are allowed to update while their computer is in sleep mode, thanks to App Nap. This feature can be found in the panel of the few apps that use it, and can be disabled if desired.
Disco
The Disc tab displays the amount of data written to and read from your disc, with minimal effect on Mac performance.
Network
The Network tab in Activity Monitor can help you monitor data usage of applications running on your Mac. It can be especially useful for programs that rely heavily on the network, such as Dropbox or torrent clients, as they may start to consume more power and CPU when their data consumption increases.
Final note
This guide provides step-by-step instructions on how to use Activity Monitor on Mac. If you have any questions, please reach out for help. Show your support by sharing this article with your friends.
