How To See The Running Apps On A Mac
At a Glance: Looking at the Dock to See Running Mac Apps. The simplest way to see what apps are running at the moment is to just glance at the Mac OS X Dock. If you see a little glowing dot under the application icon, it’s open and running. Mac Application Memory is the part of your system that is designed to handle running applications. Usually, when you download and install a software, it gets placed on your internal Hard Drive. It is what is commonly called the disk space. OS X actually allows you to install Windows directly onto your hardware and boot into. If you want to add an app's icon to your Dock to make opening the app easier, read: How to add apps to the Dock on Mac. Check the Force Quit Applications menu Press Cmd + Alt + Escape to see the. Basic: Visit the /Applications/ Folder in OS X to See Installed Mac Apps. The simplest approach to see what apps are on a Mac is to visit the /Applications folder, this will show all apps that users have installed through the App Store, that came bundled with the Mac, and that have been installed through most package managers, and by user drag & drop. Hey guys and in this video i am going to be showing you how to see how many or what programs are running background and how to close them! This is very usefu.
How to monitor your Mac’s performance? How to tell that your computer works at its full? How to compare it to other machines with similar specifications? The answer: Mac benchmark tools.
Benchmarking can help you understand the performance of your Mac’s software and hardware, including the disk speed, memory, and graphics card performance. This information is very useful as you can see the weak spots in your system that can be enhanced.
Luckily, there are many apps that can help you measure how various components of your Mac work. And in this article, we’ll look at five tools that can help you test your Mac performance.
You’ll know how they work and what they can measure. Plus, we’ll tell you about a utility that cannot only help you monitor your Mac’s performance but also improve its work and take it to a whole new level. So let’s roll!
1. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
As you have already understood from its name, the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test measures your hard drive performance, in particular, its reads/writes speeds. It was designed to help video editors to determine if their hard drives can handle various video files.
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is extremely easy to use. It consists of a single window and a big Speed Test Start button. If you have a single hard drive, simply click the Start button and Blackmagic will test your hard drive and show the results.
If you have multiple hard drives, you need to choose which one you want to test. To do that, go the Blackmagic’s settings by opening the File or Stress menus from its toolbar. Once you’ve chosen the hard drive, you may click Start to run a test.
If you are looking for a good hard drive speed test on Mac, feel free to use Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. It is free to download from the App Store, so take advantage of this tool whenever you need.
2. Geekbench
Geekbench is a useful app for measuring the CPU performance and memory speed on your Mac. It includes different tests that were designed to estimate how well your Mac can run everyday tasks.
To start the Macbook performance test, you need to install the app, launch it, choose your processor architecture and click Run Benchmarks.
When the test is completed, you can compare your results with other users. Don’t miss this great opportunity, it is really useful to see whether users on the same computer get the similar results. This may suggest that there is a problem with your Mac and what you should really expect from your particular model and hardware.
You can try Geekbench for free, but if you want to get the full version, you need to buy it from the App store.
3. Cinebench
Cinebench is a platform used to test two things: CPU and graphics card performance. It may be interesting for you to know that Cinebench is based on MAXON’s Cinema 4D animation software that is used for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in different popular movies, including Iron Man 3, Prometheus, and Oblivion.
You can use Cinebench to test:
Main processor performance. Cinebench uses all your system’s processing power to test how quickly your processor can render a complex 3D scene that contains more than 2,000 objects, a great number of shadows, sharp reflections, and more. And the higher number you get, the faster your processor.
Graphics card performance. This test uses a 3D car scene that shows the car chase. And to test the capabilities of your graphics hardware, Cinebench uses a great variety of different effects and textures. The higher the numbers, the faster your graphics card is.
Cinebench is free to use, so if you need to run a CPU speed test on Mac or measure your graphics card performance, try it out.
4. Novabench
Novabench is a free tool that provides Mac benchmark test for your whole system, including CPU, RAM and graphics performance.
How To See Running Apps On Macbook
You can test your whole computer in minutes and even compare results with thousands of other systems. To run the Mac speed test, do the following:
- Launch the app.
- Click the Start Tests button. Novabench will start running different tests.
- Wait 1-2 minutes for the tests to run. Don’t use your computer during the tests.
- Get the results of each test along with the Novabench score (the higher the number you’ve got, the better).
Once you've tested your computer performance, you can add results to your profile or keep them private. If you want to share results with others, click the Submit and Compare button.
Novabench is easy to use and provides a quick way to test Mac performance.
5. CleanMyMac X: For overall computer performance
While the apps mentioned above are designed to measure Mac performance, a utility like CleanMyMac X can also optimize your Mac and improve its efficiency.
CleanMyMac keeps you up-to-date on all the important stuff going on inside your Mac:
- processor load
- memory usage
- available disk space
- battery health
If there’s a problem with your Mac, the app will let you know immediately and help you with the fix.
You get alerts when apps stop responding, disk temperature is high, the memory use is unusually heavy, and battery status is critical. With CleanMyMac X, you always know if your Mac is running well and can fix the problem as soon as it arises.
CleanMyMac also has the Maintenance module that gives you access to all Mac optimizing goodies: running maintenance scripts, repairing disk permissions, verifying startup disk, running Mail speedup, reindexing Spotlight.
All those things may sound a bit complex, but don’t worry: CleanMyMac X is extremely easy to use. Just run a scan of your whole system and the app will tell you what should be removed to boost your Mac performance. The scanning and cleaning process requires just 2 clicks and less than 5 minutes. Impressive, right?
Good news, CleanMyMac X is free to download. So give it a try and boost your Mac’s performance!
That’s it. We hope our article was useful and you’ve chosen a Mac benchmark tool that works best for you. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!
These might also interest you:
All-mighty Mac system monitor
When your Mac slows down or starts behaving erratically, chances are it's because an application that's running, perhaps in the background, is misbehaving. And if it's not an application that's causing the problem, it will almost certainly be a process associated with macOS or an ancillary service.
Solving this problem is usually as simple as killing the process, but in order to do that you need to identify which one.Here's a comprehensive guide on how to view and kill processes on your Mac.
Best task killers for Mac
Best note syncing app for mac. Try the best tools that help you find and kill processes hampering your Mac's performance.
How to show which processes consume a lot of memory
The easiest way to view all active processes running on your Mac is to launch Activity Monitor from your Applications folder. In the default CPU tab, you can see how much processing power every process takes, ranked by the most consuming. And if you switch to the Memory tab, you will see the same list ranked by the amount of used up RAM.
For more immediate and elaborate information on how your computer resources are consumed, use iStat Menus, which handily lives in your menu bar and, in its MEM table, shows you applications and processes that are consuming more than their fair share of RAM in real time.
How to kill process using Activity Monitor
- Launch Activity Monitor.
The easiest way to launch Activity Monitor is to press Command and spacebar to call up Spotlight, then start typing Activity Monitor. When it appears in Spotlight, hit Return to launch it. Alternatively, go to Utilities in the Applications folder and double-click on its icon. Or open Activity Monitor in one click through iStat Menus app. - View and filter tasks.
You'll notice there are five tabs across the top of the Activity Monitor window: CPU, Energy, Memory, Disk, and Network. Clicking on any of those tabs organizes processes according to the percentage of the resource they are using. So, clicking on CPU lists tasks in the order of how much CPU capacity they're using. By default, processes are ordered starting with the one that's consuming the most of the resource at the top, so you can quickly see where problems are occurring or likely to occur. To flip the order, so that processes consuming the least of the resource are at the top, click the arrow next to Memory or CPU above the list of processes. - Kill problematic processes.
When you identify a process that's causing a problem, either because it's hogging lots of CPU cycles or memory, or because it's highlighted in the Activity Monitor as having crashed, you need to kill it. To do that, click on the process first and then on the X in the Activity Monitor toolbar. The process will quit and free up the resources it was taking up. If it's a critical process, it will restart. If it's an application, it will remain shut down.
Activity Monitor alternatives
Get an advanced system monitor for macOS – an improved alternative to the default program.
How to shut down processes using Terminal
- Launch Terminal. Press Command and spacebar to pull up Spotlight then start typing Terminal. When the Terminal app appears in Spotlight, tap Return to launch it. Alternatively, navigate to the Utilities folder in Applications and double-click Terminal.
- View processes. When Terminal has launched, type 'top' into the Terminal window. You'll see a list of currently running processes. At the top of the list is an overview of the processes that are running and the resources they're consuming.
- Kill an unwanted process. When you identify a process that's causing a problem or consuming too many resources, take note of the number in the PID column next to the name of the process. To kill the process, type 'kill -9' followed by the PID number. Press Enter. The problem process will now quit.
How to prevent problematic processes
You can pretty much avoid issues altogether by being a little bit proactive in hunting down the common culprits. Here, iStat Menus will help you identify which applications or processes are consuming finite resources, such as CPU and RAM.
Then, you can use CleanMyMac maintenance routines that, when run regularly, will keep you Mac running smoothly. Here's how to do that:
- Launch Setapp and search for CleanMyMac.
- Find the maintenance scripts. Under the Speed section in the left sidebar, click on Maintenance. You will see a list of tasks that CleanMyMac would suggest you to perform to optimize your Mac. You should try to run them all, but the one especially important for us is under Run Maintenance Scripts.
- Run the maintenance scripts. Click on the checkbox next to Run Maintenance Scripts and then click Run. Alternatively, choose another specific maintenance script such as Speed Up Mail or Reindex Spotlight and click Run. When it's finished, click Select Tasks to return to the list of maintenance tasks.
Run other tasks, as necessary. If you're having problems with Mail, repeat step 3, but this time click the checkbox next to Speed Up Mail. Likewise, if Spotlight is running slowly, run the Reindex Spotlight task.
How to kill a background process
To kill a background process, use Activity Monitor. While the steps are the same as described in the 'How to kill a running process using Activity Monitor' section above, the key difference is that background processes often have obscure names that don't clearly describe what they do.
Be careful when killing a background process and, if not sure, leave it alone or search online for its exact role in your system. Otherwise, you might risk causes problems for your macOS. Generally, background processes don't tend to consume significant RAM or CPU cycles, so if you spot one that does, it has probably got into trouble. Kill it using the X in the Activity Monitor toolbar.
How to easily remove startup items
/icon-edit-app-mac.html. One common cause of Macs running slowly or having problems is items that launch automatically at startup. These could be helper apps for something like iTunes or just complete apps in their own right. They are also frequently apps you once used but no longer need.
To review the apps and helpers that startup when you log in
- Launch System Preferences from the Apple menu and click on the Users & Groups pane.
- Click the padlock and type in your password.
- Then select your username in the left panel and click the Login Items tab.
- Look through all the login items that correspond to apps you no longer use and then click the minus button. The app will no longer start up automatically when you log in.
How to Force Quit an application that's not responding
If you see the dreaded spinning beachball, or an app just won't do anything, you should force quit it.
There are several ways to force quit an unresponsive application:
- Press Command-Alt-Esc and click on the application in the window that opens. Press Force Quit
- Control-click or right-click on the application's icon in the Dock and choose Force Quit
- Launch Activity Monitor, locate the application and press the 'x' in the toolbar
- Locate the process in Activity monitor, look for the entry in the PID column and launch Terminal. Type 'kill -9' followed by the PID number. Press Enter
Fix crashing apps with Spindump
While Force Quit will fix the problem, it’s a temporary solution. If you’re determined to identify the source of crashing apps and prevent them from happening, use Spindump on Mac. It’s a hang reporting tool that alerts you about the crash and helps share the details with the app developer.
Whenever the app crashes, it will trigger Spindump and send the information to Apple or the app developer. Not only does it help you understand what just happened, but it also helps the developer track the conditions of app misbehavior — and fix it accordingly. A win-win.
How to create a Spindump file on Mac
- Launch Activity Monitor via Applications > Utilities
- Pick the app for which you want to create a Spindump file, then click on the Settings icon
- Select Spindump or Run Spindump
- Wait a few seconds for the file to generate
- Click Save.
Reset a problematic app
There's one more thing you can try if an app keeps running slowly or crashing – reset it. Thanks to CleanMyMac, resetting an app is easy. Here's what you need to do:
- Locate the uninstaller. In the left hand sidebar of CleanMyMac, click on Uninstaller under Applications.
- Find the app that's causing a problem. Scroll through the list of apps until you find the one that's been crashing or running slowly. Click on it to highlight.
- Reset the app. With the app highlighted, you'll see all the files associated with it in the right-hand window. Click Application Reset at the top of the window and all the files, except the main application file, will be selected.
- Click Uninstall. All the selected files will be trashed, effectively resetting the application to its default state. When you launch it the next time, it will behave as if it has just been installed — so you'll need to recreate any custom settings or preferences.
If resetting the app doesn't work, the final resort should be to uninstall the app completely and reinstall it. To do that, click Complete Uninstallation in the same menu instead of Application Reset.
As you can see there are lots of different ways and apps that help you view and kill processes in macOS. iStat Menus is a great way to passively monitor which processes are causing problems, so you can launch Activity Monitor and quit them. And running CleanMyMac's maintenance scripts regularly prevents problems occurring in the first place. Best of all, all these apps are available to try for free on Setapp, along with over 200 high-quality macOS apps. So check your Mac for problematic processes now and see what you find.
Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.
Read onSign Up