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Use Activity Monitor to see how much of your Mac’s processor is active, identify processes using it, and keep a live CPU graph in the Dock. Open Activity Monitor, then use its CPU pane and the Window or View menus to choose the display you need.
How to see CPU usage on your Mac
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Open Activity Monitor. You can find it in the Utilities folder inside Applications, or search for it with Spotlight.
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Select the CPU tab to see processor activity over time, along with a list of running processes.
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For a compact current-activity display, choose Window > CPU Usage. To see recent activity as a graph, choose Window > CPU History.
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Apple documents both views in its Activity Monitor CPU guide. Menu labels and appearance can vary by macOS version; Apple’s current guide identifies macOS Tahoe 26.
What System, User, and Idle mean
The CPU pane separates processor capacity into three categories:
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- System: CPU capacity used by processes that belong to macOS.
- User: CPU capacity used by apps you opened and processes those apps started.
- Idle: CPU capacity that is not being used.
These categories describe activity, not a pass-or-fail health score. A single reading is only a moment in time; look at the activity over time and consider what you were doing before deciding whether a process needs attention.
How to find what is using CPU
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In Activity Monitor’s CPU pane, click the CPU column heading to sort processes by their CPU use. Click it again to reverse the sort order.
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Use the search field to look for an app or process by name. If you need more context, select a process to view its details.
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To change which information appears in the list, use the column-heading options to show or hide columns. The View menu also lets you group processes.
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These features help narrow down which item to investigate, but a process name alone is not enough reason to stop or remove it. Apple’s guide to viewing process information explains how to inspect and organize the list.
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Activity Monitor can show a live CPU graph on its Dock icon. In Activity Monitor, choose View > Dock Icon, then select one of the available Show CPU options. Apple describes this Dock graph as a way to view CPU activity without keeping the main window in front.
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Which view should you use?
| What you want to see | Activity Monitor option |
|---|---|
| Current processor activity | Window > CPU Usage |
| Recent activity over time | Window > CPU History |
| A live graph while Activity Monitor is in the Dock | View > Dock Icon, then a Show CPU option |
| Which listed processes are using CPU | CPU pane; sort by the CPU column or search by process or app name |
For other Activity Monitor features and version-specific guidance, see Apple’s Activity Monitor User Guide.
Quick Recap
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