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Alen Knight

Knight Scenes and Imaginings

February 22, 2010

mac os x activity monitor

In the windows world, when a system starts to act up, you often go to the taskmgr (start>run>taskmgr), but how to do this in mac?

it’s called activity monitor.

you can find it in utilities, but i like to go to the SPOTLIGHT search at the top right (magnifying glass) and just type ACTIVITY MONITOR. This tool will help you see what types of processes are running on your mac.

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  1. In the Show pop-up menu in the toolbar of Activity Monitor or Process Viewer, assure All Processes is selected.
  2. Sort the list of processes by %CPU in descending order:

    • In Activity Monitor, click the %CPU column heading until the data in that column is sorted in descending order.
    • In Process Viewer, click the %CPU column heading, then click the arrowhead at the right side of the column headings until the %CPU column is sorted in descending order.

The process or application using the greatest % CPU is now at the top of the list.

To terminate a process
  1. Select the process you want to terminate in the list or processes.
  2. Press the Command-Option-Q keyboard combination or use one of these other application-specific methods to terminate the selected process:
  • Leopard, Tiger: Choose View > Quit Process or click the Quit Process icon in the toolbar.
  • Panther: Choose Process > Quit or click the Quit Process icon in the toolbar.
  • Jaguar: Choose Process Viewer > Processes > Quit Process.

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