- Activity Monitor Is the Task Manager for Mac. If you go to the Utilities folder under Applications on your Mac, that’s where you can find Activity Monitor, the official task manager for Mac computers. Seeing Activity Monitor for the first time can be overwhelming as the application displays a plethora of information at the same time.
- On Mac computers, the Activity Monitor application is equivalent to the Task Manager program found on Windows PCs. You can open Activity Monitor using either the Launchpad or the Applications folder on Macs running OS X Yosemite. Use Launchpad to Open Activity Monitor Step 1: Click the Launchpad icon on your Mac's.
- A task manager helps you in better managing, organizing, and creating to-dos, lists, tasks, files, and other notes more efficiently. It helps you by sorting your tasks in a good manner to promote a stress-free work environment. The task management can only be done by proper planning, which helps to execute tasks within a specific time period.
The Mac has its Task Manager, but it has a task log with a different name. The Active Monitor operates in a somewhat similar manner to how Task Manager works in Windows, which allows you to quickly access, control, and end tasks on Mac, applications, and any active processes that are running on Mac OS X. Task Manager, which goes by the name of Activity Monitor on Mac OS X, is an application that allows you to view and monitor all active processes running on your computer. If your computer is running slow or inefficiently, you can open Activity Monitor to determine which applications are consuming the highest amount of resources.
Many users who have converted from Windows to Mac computers are often left wondering as to what is the Task Manager equivalent on a Mac and how to open it. In this article, we will be showing you how to open and use Task manager on Mac.
Mac Equivalent of Task Manager
The Task Manger on a Windows Computer is used to quit applications, whenever an application or program gets stuck or freezes on a Windows Computer.
Activity Monitor is the Mac’s version or the equivalent of Task Manager as found in Windows Computers. Similar to the Task Manager, Activity Monitor provides the details of the CPU or the Memory being used by Apps and services on your Mac.
While the episodes of Apps and native Services freezing on a Mac are fewer compared to Windows Computers, Mac also provides a dedicated Force Quit Applications Manager, in addition to the Activity Monitor.
In case you do come across any App getting stuck on your Mac, you can make use of Force Quit Applications Manager to quit the offending App or make use of the Activity Manager to see more details about this app.
Open Task Manager On Mac
As mentioned above the Mac equivalent of Task Manger is known as Activity Manager and it provides detailed information about how much CPU, Memory, etc. an application or process is using up on your Mac.
1. Click on the Finder icon (Happy Face) from the left corner of the Dock on your Mac
2. On the next screen, click on Applications from the side menu (See image below)
Macbook Task Manager Command
3. In the Applications Folder, click on the Utilities Folder and open it (See image above)
4. In the Utilities Folder, click on Activity Monitor (which is usually the first item in the list)
5. On the next screen (Activity Monitor), you will be able to see the details of CPU being used by all the Apps and Services running on your Mac.
Pin Activity Monitor to Dock on Mac
You can avoid the long way of Opening Activity Monitor on your Mac by pinning the Activity Monitor to the Dock Bar.
1. Once you open the Activity Monitor on your Mac using above steps, it will be visible on the Dock Bar. Simply Right Click on the Activity Monitor icon in the Dock to launch a Menu (See image below)
2. Next, hover your mouse over Options and then click on Keep in Dock option in the side menu that appears (See image above).
From now on you will see the Activity Monitor Icon pinned to the Dock on your Mac and you will be able to access the Activity Monitor by simply clicking on its icon on the Dock.
How to Use Task Manager on Mac
Below is a short guide on how to use the Mac equivalent of Task Manager, known as the Activity Monitor on your Mac.
1. View CPU, Memory and Other System Resources Being Used on your Mac
Once you open Activity Monitor on you Mac, you will see a screen with five Tabs – CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk and Network (See image below).
CPU – Clicking on the CPU tab provides you information about the amount of CPU being used by the various Applications on your Mac.
Memory – Clicking on the Memory tab allows you to see the amount of Memory being used by the Apps and System Programs on your Mac. You will see the Apps using the highest Memory at the top of the list (See image below)
The Memory tab also provides a totals chart at the bottom, displaying an overview of the total Memory usage on your Mac.
Energy – Tapping on this tab will bring up the Energy Usage by the Apps and processes on your Mac. The Apps using the most energy (battery) in the last 8 hours or since your Mac has started up will be listed at the top.
At the bottom of the screen you will see how much battery is left, how long the battery is expected to last and how many hours has the battery been used for.
Disk – Tapping on the Disk tab will show you the amount of data that each application or process has read from your disk and written to your disk.
At the bottom of the Disk tab you will see the total amount of data read and total amount of data written by the disk including all processes and apps.
Network – Tapping on the Network tab will show you how much data each process is sending and receiving over your internet connection.
At the bottom, you will see the total amount of data received and total amount of data sent by your Mac computer.
View Info About an Application or Process
The Activity Monitor also allows you to view additional information about Application and Processes on your Mac.
Apple Task Manager Ipad
1. Click on the Application or the process that you want to view more information about.
2. Next, click on the i button from the top left corner of the Activity Monitor window (See image below)
3. A window will pop-up showing you more information about the application or process.
How To Open Macbook Task Manager
Force Quit Applications in Activity Monitor
Follow the steps below to Force Quit Applications using the Activity Monitor on your Mac
1. Once you have opened the Activity Monitor on your Mac, click on the Application that you want to Force Quit (See image below)
2. Next, click on the x button, located near the top left corner of the Activity Monitor window (See image above)
3. You may see a pop-up asking you to confirm that you do want to Quit the App. Click on Force Quit option in the pop-up to quit this App.
Ctrl + Alt + Delete Equivalent on Mac
In addition to the Activity Monitor, Mac computers also feature a Force Quit Applications Manager which allows you to force quit Apps.
The Force Quit Applications Manager on a Mac can be accessed by holding down Command + Option (Alt key) + Escape Keys on your Mac.
The Force Quit Applications Manager just allows you to Force Quit Apps and does not provide details like how much CPU or memory an application is using.
You will find below the steps to use Force Quit Applications Manager.
Open Force Quit Applications Manager on Mac
If your primary goal is to only Force Quit an application on your Mac and you do not care about how much CPU or Memory the application is using up, then you should make use of the Force Quit Applications Manager to perform this task.
There are 2 ways to open the Force Quit Application manager on your Mac
1. Click on the Apple icon in the top menu-bar on your Mac and then click on Force Quit… Option (See image below)
2. On the Force Quit Applications screen, click on the Application Name that you want to quit and then click on the Force Quit button (See image below).
3. Next, you will see a pop-up asking you to confirm that you do want to Force Quit this app. Click on Force Quit to quit this application.
In case an application is active, you can Force Quit the Application by clicking on the Apple icon in the top-menu bar of your Mac and then clicking on Force Quit (Application Name) from the drop-down menu (See image below).
Note: You can also use the Command + Alt + Esc key combination to launch the Force Quit Application Manager on your Mac.
If you are a user of Windows then you most probably know the importance of CTRL, ALT and Delete keys. This is the combination you provide to your windows computer when you need the task manager to appear in front of you so that you can end a process that is hanged. Task manager can be put to good use if you can know their functionality very well. You can just keep an eye on the day to day process that is going on, on your computer. It’s like a CCTV camera. For the Macbook it is known as the Mac Task Manager
The most popular among the task manager is the Windows ask Manager and the reason being the popularity of the OS and ease of use. Other than that Windows Task Manager is quite effective in helping you, manually clean up your device when it becomes slow. But nowadays people are going towards the more comfort zone and thus choosing Mac for comfort and class. As the title suggests we will be moving forward with the Mac task Manager and ways you can use it for your day to day use in your Macbook.
The Mac task manager is also known as the Activity Monitor as you control various activity and processes in your Mac Book with the help of it. But it is quite similar as well as quite different from the windows task manager at the same time. The activity monitor can monitor system parameters, force stop apps that got hanged, view additional info and keeping your computer neat and clean manually. In this ways mentioned you can compare it with the Windows task manager for similarity however when you try to find out the difference, there are not so many apart from the usability and interface. You will not be able to open Activity Monitor with the conventional CTRL, Alt and Delete command rather there is a different process for that. But first, let us take a look at the various features of the Activity Monitor.
Basically here we are going to look at some of the features the Mac task manager has so that you can explore it more for your day to day works.
1. Monitor the Various system parameters
The first thing you get to see when you open the Mac task manager is a cool interface with some tabs or panes. These tabs are in the form of categories which are Memory, CPU, Disc, energy (battery) and Network.
The memory tab is basically used to keep an eye on the storage system of the Computer. Through it, you can keep an eye on the RAM, its activities and how it is being used.
The CPU tab helps to check how much the processes are affecting the processor and its activity.
The disc tab shows how much data has been read from your disc or written to your disc.
The Energy pane simply keeps an eye on the battery/power consumption and also provides us the usage details.
The network pane can be simply used for getting a note of the data that are sent or received by processes during a task.
2. Force stop applications that are not working
You can force stop applications that are not working or has stopped working. In order to do so, you need to go to activity monitor, select the application that got freeze and force close that application.
3. View additional information about the processes and application on your Mac book
You can check out additional info about the processes and applications that are currently running on your Mac book. To do so you need to go to Activity monitor and click on I button to know more about the application.
4. Remove unwanted files and make your computer clean
You can also clean apps that are unnecessarily using RAM and Disc memory In order to keep your computer neat and clean.
Remember, how we used to press the CTRL, Alt and Delete buttons to bring the task manager so that we can force stop unwanted processes? This is all the same in the Activity monitor as well, the only difference being the CTRL, Alt and Delete buttons are not used here to call it. Rather it can be launched directly. The Mac Task manager is located in the Applications>Utilities> folder location of your Mac Book. To open it you can follow the steps given below.
1. Using Spotlight
- First, you need to open the Spotlight search field and for that, you can press command and spacebar simultaneously.
- Type Activity monitor and it will appear in the list. Select it and wait for a few
2. Using finder
If the previous method fails then you can simply use this method as well.
- Go to the Finder icon in the Dock and select it.
- A window will appear and you will then need to choose the application pane for sidebar menu in the window.
- Thereafter, you need to go to the Utilities Folder. There you will find the Activity Monitor.
- Click on the Activity Monitor Icon next to run it.
3. Pin it to the Dock
You can simply pin it to the Dock so that you can run it easily whenever you want to. To do so
- Open the Activity Monitor using the above-mentioned
- Right click on the Activity Monitor icon and choose “Keep in Dock” option to keep the application in the dock for later use. It’s like the toolbar in windows.
4. Force stop application
As mentioned above few times that there are no CTRL Alt and delete option for the Mac counterpart to call the Activity Monitor. You need to visit the activity monitor first. Then you need to select the app that has been freeze and is not working. After that click on the “x” button to simply close it. You may find a window pop up which will ask for your surety on whether you want to close the application or not. Click on agree and proceed. However, you can use Command, Escape and option keys on your Mac Book to call the Force Quit app manager. This will help you to easily close the unnecessary apps on your Mac book.
Using Mac may be hard for the first timers and especially those who had just shifted from windows. However, there are numerous ways you can ease your work while working on a Mac book. The good news is that you will be needing the activity manager less often because the apps and the device is built far better than a device with a similar configuration on other OS. However, in case of emergency, you need to use writemypaper it and thus now you can use it from the dock itself after reading this article.