Activity Monitor Help

Welcome to Activity Monitor

View information about how apps and other processes are using your system resources, including the processor, disks, memory, and network.

The Activity Monitor window with the CPU pane visible. The middle of the window shows a list of processes, with information about the processor usage of each one displayed in columns. At the bottom of the window is a graph showing the percentage of the CPU capability used by the system and the user, and the percentage that’s idle.
An unresponsive process in the Activity Monitor window.

Close unresponsive apps and processes

When your system is acting sluggish or simply not responding, an app or process may be the source of the problem. You can use Activity Monitor to locate the troublesome app or process and force it to quit. Select the app or process, then click the Force Quit button.

The Energy pane of Activity Monitor. The middle of the window shows a list of apps, with information about the energy usage of each one displayed in columns. At the bottom of the window is a graph showing the overall energy impact.

See how much energy your Mac is using

Do you want to know how much energy your Mac is using, or see which apps or processes are using the most energy? Just click Energy to view the energy impact of your apps.

The Activity Monitor icon in the Dock showing disk activity.

See real-time CPU, network, or disk status in the Dock

It’s easy to keep an eye on your system status without even looking at the Activity Monitor window. Just choose View > Dock Icon, and you can monitor your current CPU, network, or disk usage as a live graph in the Dock.

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