Mac activity Monitor tutorial-CPU Monitoring
The processes shown in Activity Monitor can be user apps, system apps used by macOS, or hidden background processes. Use the five category tabs at the top of the Activity Monitor window to see how processes affect Mac in each category.
Add or remove columns in each panel by choosing Show> Columns from the menu bar. You can also choose which processes appear in each panel from the Display menu:
All processes All processes, displayed hierarchically: processes that belong to other processes so you can see the parent/child relationships between them. My processes: processes that belong to macOS user accounts. System processes: processes belonging to macOS. Processes of other users: processes that do not belong to root or the current user. Active Process: A running process that is not asleep. Inactive process: A running process that is dormant. Windowing process: A process that creates windows. These processes are usually apps. Selected Process: The process you selected in the Activity Monitor window. Apps used in the last 8 hours: Apps that belong to running processes in the last 8 hours. CPU
The CPU panel shows how processes affect CPU (processor) activity:
Click at the top of the % CPU column to sort by the percentage of CPU power each process consumes. This information, along with information in the Energy Consumption panel, helps you identify processes that are currently affecting Mac performance, battery uptime, temperature, and fan activity.
For more information, see the bottom of the CPU panel:
System: Percentage of CPU power currently used by system processes (processes that belong to macOS). User: Percentage of CPU power currently used by apps you open or processes opened by those apps. Idle: Percentage of unused CPU capacity. CPU Load: Percentage of CPU capacity currently used by all system and user processes. The graph moves from right to left and updates at intervals set in Display> Update Frequency. Blue shows the percentage of total CPU power currently used by user processes. Red shows the percentage of total CPU power currently used by system processes. Threads: Total number of threads used by all processes combined. Processes: The total number of processes currently running.
You can also view CPU usage in a separate window or Dock:
To open a window that displays current processor activity, choose Window> CPU Usage. To display a graphic for this information in the Dock, choose Display> Dock Icon> Show CPU Usage. To open a window that shows recent processor activity, choose Window> CPU History. To display a graphic for this information in the Dock, choose Display> Dock Icon> Show CPU History.
