macOS Performance

Activity Monitor basics on Mac

Spot what is slowing your Mac using Apple’s built-in process viewer.

10 min read Beginner Updated 9 Jun 2026

Step-by-step guide

Work through each section in order. Stop when your issue is resolved — you do not need every step for every situation.

Warning

Create a Time Machine backup before major updates, disk operations, or security changes on macOS.

What you will achieve

Spot what is slowing your Mac using Apple’s built-in process viewer.

1) Sort by real bottleneck

  • CPU tab for sustained high processes.
  • Memory tab for pressure graph and swap usage.
  • Disk tab for heavy writes/reads.

2) Inspect suspicious process

Select process and click i for open files, parent process, and sample details.

3) Quit safely

Use Quit first; reserve Force Quit for hung apps.

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