How to get and use Task Manager on Mac

The task manager equivalent tool for Mac systems is the activity monitor, which is pre-installed on every Mac computer. Apart from Activity Monitor, there are several other ways to manage tasks and applications on your Mac, such as using a forced exit or a third-party task manager alternative tool specifically for specific tasks (more on this later).

This may sound a bit confusing, but I promise, it's easy. Let me show you how to use Task Manager on your Mac and make your switch from Windows to macOS as smooth as possible.

Table of contents

• Task Manager equivalent tool on Mac
  • Method 1: Forced exit
  • Method 2: Activity Monitor
• Better alternative to Apple Task Manager?
  • iStat Menus: Track CPU, GPU and sensors
  • CleanMyMac: Overall Mac Control and Cleanup
  • Quit All: Batch Exit Application
• How to use Activity Monitor on Mac
• Enhance Mac performance with a toolkit
• FAQ

Get the ultimate task manager for your Mac

Get iStat Menus to take your control over your Mac to the next level. Use Setapp to try for 7 days for free.

Free trial of Task Manager equivalent tools on a secure beta version of Mac

Whether you need to resolve performance issues, force exit an unresponsive application, or identify processes that are overly resource-consuming on your Mac, try the following:

Method 1: Forced exit

according to Option Command Esc A list of active applications is available and forced to exit.

Or, follow these steps:

1. Click on the Apple logo on the Mac menu bar.
2. Then, click "Force Exit".
3. Select the frozen application and click the "Force Exit" button to end the task.
4. When prompted, click "Force Exit" again to confirm this operation.

Method 2: Activity Monitor

A Task Manager (or the equivalent tool for Task Manager on Mac) is already preinstalled on your Mac - called Activity Monitor, which you can find in utility tools, or use Spotlight search to find it. Let's learn about it in more detail.

What is an Activity Monitor?

Activity Monitor is basically a replacement for Windows Task Manager, which is a utility that shows how much memory the Mac process uses and which applications are currently active (even if they are not turned on), allowing you to force exit the stalled application if you can't close them the usual way.

How to open Task Manager on Mac?

On Mac, there are no keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl Alt Delete to open Mac Process Monitor. So, where is the Task Manager (i.e. Activity Monitor) on your Mac? Choose one of three methods to access it.

• Method 1: Open the activity monitor from Spotlight

1. according to Command Space Open Spotlight.
2. Start typing Activity Monitor.
3. Once the activity monitor is highlighted, press Enter or click it.

• Method 2: Open the activity monitor from Finder

1. Click Finder in the Dock.
2. Navigate to Applications in the sidebar.
3. Select Utility in the Applications window.
4. Double-click the Activity Monitor icon.

• Method 3: Open the activity monitor from the Dock

1. Use one of the two previous methods to open the activity monitor.
2. Right-click the Activity Monitor icon in the Dock.
3. Select Options.
4. Then, select Stay in Dock.

If you keep having recurring issues, it is definitely worth doing to set up an activity monitor in the Dock. It is essentially a handy one-click Mac task manager shortcut.

There should now be a check mark next to "Stay in Dock". This means that even if you exit the app, it stays in the Dock - then you can start it like any other program.

Better alternative to Apple Task Manager?

While Activity Monitor is definitely the equivalent tool for Task Manager on Mac, sometimes you want to monitor your Mac's processes more closely and get real-time updates to your Mac's performance. Here are some tools you may find useful.

Keep your Mac under control

iStat Menus is a Mac monitoring tool you need to get great performance. Get updates to your Mac resources with just one click.

Free trial of security beta### iStat Menus: Track CPU, GPU, and sensors

iStat Menus gives you a quick look at what content is using your Mac’s resources at just one glance. The app runs directly in the menu bar, showing a chart of almost all of your Mac's features, so you can immediately find out what's wrong, or just notice how your Mac behaves under different conditions.

You can choose which iStat Menus trackers to install based on the tasks you want to focus on. Once installed, they will appear in the menu bar and just one click, so you don't need to open any apps to see how your Mac is running.

Here are the key things you can monitor with iStat Menus:

• CPU and GPU, with detailed historical charts, runtime, applications that consume a lot of CPU, etc.
• Memory usage
• Network usage and bandwidth breakdown for top-level applications
• Sensors including temperature, fan, CPU and GPU frequency
• Used disk space and disk activity
• Battery and power supply.

CleanMyMac: Overall Mac Control and Cleanup

I also recommend that you try the Apple notarized Mac maintenance app called CleanMyMac. It gives you instant insight into available memory and helps optimize your Mac.

How to use it is as follows:

1. Install and open CleanMyMac.
2. Click the CleanMyMac icon in the top menu bar.
3. Click "Memory" to view available memory. Click "CPU" to view its load.
4. View the top users and exit users you don't need now.
5. Click "Release" under "Memory" to allow CleanMyMac to optimize your Mac and free up valuable space.

Quit All: Batch Exit Application

If you are looking for answers about macOS Task Manager, it may be because some applications are stuck in you. Sometimes, you don't even know which app is causing the problem.

Here are the steps to easily exit the application and resolve the issue:

1. Open Quit All through Setapp.
2. Select the application (including background applications: Settings > View background applications).
3. Click the "Exit All" button.

The main advantage of Quit All is that it can handle tricky background processes that are difficult to tame. Additionally, Quit All will always prompt you to save all unsaved changes before exiting the application.

Note If you want to stick to the built-in method, you can also force exit the selected application or process on your Mac using Activity Monitor:

1. Open the Activity Monitor.
2. Navigate to the "CPU" or "Memory" tab and find the slow process.
3. Click to highlight.
4. Press the X icon in the top toolbar.
5. Confirm that you are sure you want to exit the process.

How to use Activity Monitor on Mac

Let's discuss in more detail how to use the Activity Monitor. If you decide to use it as a task manager on your Mac, you should learn how to use its monitor indicator.

CPU usage

The first tab in Activity Monitor lists all the processes currently consuming Mac CPU, displays the exact percentage of power they consume, and indicates how long they have been running.

You can sort all processes in the Activity Monitor by CPU usage (high to low) by selecting View > All Processes and clicking the %CPU column.

You may notice a process called "kernel_task" in the CPU tab, which may take up a lot of resources. Don't panic, and don't close it! The process simply ensures that your CPU doesn't work too hard by forcing other memory-intensive Mac processes to exit. So it seems like it may be one of the heaviest processes on the list. Similarly, "mds" and "mdworker" help search index files for Spotlight, which sometimes increases their footprint.

Please read also:

• Control fan speed
• Fixed the error where forced exit did not work
• Check CPU usage on your Mac
• How to Stop Rotating Color Wheel on Mac

Check RAM usage

The second tab reflects how much RAM each process consumes, which is probably the most useful of all metrics. RAM directly affects the speed of your Mac, so getting rid of a large number of users is the fastest way to speed up.

Another interesting feature of the Memory tab is the RAM pressure gauge at the bottom (see picture above). If the bar chart is green, your Mac's RAM is not over-required. But if it turns red – consider buying more memory for your machine.

How do I limit memory usage on my Mac Activity monitor allows you to stop certain processes altogether when RAM or CPU is overloaded. But that's not always what we need, right? Sometimes, you just need to limit the use of resources for your application. In this case, I use App Tamer. It can discover large numbers of users on Mac and automatically slow down its speed, reducing CPU and RAM consumption without quitting the application. You can also set a limit on the number of CPUs the application allows to use (as shown in the screenshot).

Check energy usage in macOS Task Manager

The middle tab is very convenient when you use your MacBook without plugging in a power supply. Here you can easily find applications and processes that drain battery and exit them for longer screen time.

Tips to check average energy impact – This will tell you which applications consume the most energy on average. If you don't use these apps often, consider removing them.

Disk activity on Mac

Although this tab may not be the most useful tab in daily use, it still shows how various processes interact with the hard disk, rewrite data. If you happen to have some malware installed, you might find its processes as large outliers here and exit them in time.

Check network activity on your Mac

The last tab in Activity Monitor reflects the amount of data received and sent by each application you install. Again, it is usually suitable for discovering outliers that may send too much data online.

Sometimes, I need to save money When you use Wi-Fi, data usage is not a big deal, but when it comes to mobile data — especially abroad — it can become crucial.

That's why I use TripMode whenever I need to limit my data usage. This tool monitors the amount of data used by each application and allows me to limit or disable any application individually.

Check the process in the Activity Monitor

If you want to have a deeper look at the specific process running on your Mac, highlight this process in Activity Monitor and press Command I . Or, go to View > Check the process . On the check screen, you will find information about how much CPU and memory this process uses, how long it has been running, and more.

Enhance Mac performance with a toolkit

It is crucial to know how to use your MacBook Task Manager to check your Mac's performance, and following the tips above is a good start. The next step is to have tools that help fix Mac performance issues.

Setapp has all this – a toolkit that includes advanced task manager iStat Menus and smart Mac maintenance application CleanMyMac. Additionally, with Setapp, you can get many small utilities such as Quit All for forcing an exit from an application, App Tamer for reducing CPU usage, TripMode for optimizing network activity, and more. More than 250 apps are available for you to try for seven days for free.

FAQ

How to find a Task Manager on your Mac?

Activity Monitor is the Mac equivalent tool for Windows Task Manager. To open it, open Finder > Applications > Utility. In this folder, you will see the Activity Monitor icon. Double-click it to launch the application.

What is the best Mac alternative for Task Manager?

While Activity Monitor is definitely the equivalent tool for Task Manager on Mac, sometimes you want to monitor your Mac's processes more closely and get real-time updates to your Mac's performance. iStat Menus will help you do this.

Why can't I open Task Manager on my Mac?

Mac computers do not have a task manager like Windows computers. Instead, they have similar features called Activity Monitor. To open the Activity Monitor on your Mac, go to the Applications folder in Finder and open Utilities. Finally, click Activity Monitor. This will give you an overview of all running processes and applications on your Mac, allowing you to manage them or force exit if necessary.

The above is the detailed content of How to get and use Task Manager on Mac. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!