# Vitals

> Vitals is the Activity Monitor alternative for Mac and AI agents. It groups every process under the app it belongs to, so a working Mac shows about 60 apps instead of about 1,000 processes, each with one figure for memory, CPU, energy, disk and network. It keeps up to a year of history, sends a notification when an app misbehaves, lives in the menu bar, and finds dev servers left running. It has tabs for the GPU, the Neural Engine, Docker containers and coding agents, with what is left of each AI plan and when it resets, an MCP server so Claude, Codex, Cursor and any assistant that speaks MCP can ask it what is running, a vitals command that gives the same answers in the terminal, and a Customize page for chart colors, the font and weight of the numbers, and the spacing.

- Price: two ways to buy, both paid once. A year of updates is $9 for one Mac: every version released in the next twelve months, and the app keeps working after that; only a version released after the year needs a renewal. Lifetime is $39 for one Mac at the regular price, with every update for life. No subscription, no paid upgrades.
- Lifetime launch price: The launch price started at $5 for the first 1,000 licenses and rises in steps as they sell, up to the regular $39. The pricing card at vitalsmac.com/pricing shows the price today, how many are left at it, and what it goes to next. The $9 step has sold out; it is now $15.
- Vitals + Flit: Flit, the studio's dictation app (flit.fyi), has a Lifetime license that comes with a Vitals license. Bought on vitalsmac.com it is $59 during Flit's launch ($99 regular) for both apps, with both keys in one email; Flit covers 2 Macs and the Vitals license one.
- More Macs: Lifetime packs of 2, 5, 10 or 25 Macs cost $25, $55, $99 or $199 today ($78, $195, $390 or $975 regular), as one license key with that many seats. A pack never costs more than the one-Mac price for each Mac. The year of updates has no packs; several are bought as a quantity at checkout.
- Free trial: 3 days of every feature, with no account and no card. Download from https://vitalsmac.com/download or with Homebrew, open Vitals and choose Try Free. After buying, a 14-day refund.
- Cash back: post about Vitals on X, Threads, Reels, TikTok or Shorts; 5,000 views refunds 50%, 20,000 refunds all of it (on X and Threads, 10,000 and 50,000 views).
- Latest version: 1.8.0, released 2026-10-22. Updates install from inside the app; the changelog is at https://vitalsmac.com/changelog.
- Roadmap: what is coming next, in order, is at https://vitalsmac.com/roadmap: A storage map: what takes your disk space; Safe cleanup of caches and old build files; Drive health; Disk activity for each drive; Mac Health; A watchdog for runaway dev processes. Nothing on the roadmap is in the app yet; the changelog lists what is. No dates. A lifetime license includes all of it; a year of updates includes what ships during the year.
- How buying works: download Vitals from vitalsmac.com/download and try it free, or pay on vitalsmac.com and the license key arrives by email, with the download link on the page after checkout. Open Vitals and paste the key once per Mac, during the trial or after it. To move to a new Mac, choose Deactivate This Mac in Settings → License, or free the seat at apps.fore.studio/manage. No account.
- Requirements: macOS 15 Sequoia or later, Apple silicon and Intel. Power and temperature figures are most detailed on Apple silicon.
- Distribution: direct download, signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized, or with Homebrew: brew install --cask foredotstudio/tap/vitals installs the app and the vitals command. Not on the Mac App Store, because its sandbox stops an app from reading other apps' processes.
- Command line: the vitals command answers from the running app, so it measures nothing itself: vitals status, top, app, find, ports, projects, containers, agents, limits, awake, battery, history and whats-wrong, each as a table or with --json or --csv. vitals can-quit gives a verdict (safe, ask first, or leave it alone); vitals quit and vitals stop act only after it and a yes, and refuse what needs a person when there is no terminal to ask on. It comes with the app (Settings → Integrations) or with Homebrew, with a manual page and tab completion for zsh, bash and fish. Full reference: https://vitalsmac.com/features/cli.
- Privacy: no account, no analytics. What you run, your history and your project names stay on the Mac. It goes online only to check for updates and to check the license; activating sends the key, the Mac's name and an anonymous hashed ID, and nothing about what the Mac is doing.
- App languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese, in the words macOS itself uses. Vitals follows the Mac's language; to use another one for Vitals only, add it under Applications in System Settings → General → Language & Region.
- Website languages: every page is also in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese, at the same path after a language prefix (/de, /es, /fr, /it, /nl, /pt-br, /sv, /ja, /ko, /zh-hans), for example https://vitalsmac.com/de/free-up-ram-mac. These text files and the pages' Markdown copies are in English.
- Sold through Paddle as merchant of record. Made by Atta Ur Rehman Shah (https://attacomsian.com), trading as Fore Studio.
- Not to be confused with other Mac software called Vitals: Harry Marr's open-source Vitals (hmarr/vitals, a menu bar graph of the last 60 seconds), rafay99's Vitals (temperatures, fans and battery health), mac-vitals and MacVitals. This Vitals is the one at vitalsmac.com, by Fore Studio, and the only one that groups processes by app with up to a year of history.

## Pages

- [Home](https://vitalsmac.com/): the app, every feature shown working, the comparison with Activity Monitor, pricing and the FAQ
- [Features](https://vitalsmac.com/features.md): every feature with a page of its own, each with the feature working, what you get, and the questions people ask
- [Apps, not processes](https://vitalsmac.com/features/apps-not-processes.md): Every helper under its app, so "what is using my memory?" gets a one-line answer.
- [Coding agents](https://vitalsmac.com/features/agents.md): Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and the rest: each session with its project, what it is doing, and what it started.
- [AI usage limits](https://vitalsmac.com/features/ai-usage-limits.md): How much is left of Claude, Codex, Copilot and the rest, when each resets, and whether you will make it there.
- [MCP server](https://vitalsmac.com/features/mcp-server.md): Your assistant asks what is running, which app is behind a number and what is on a port, instead of reading a process list.
- [Command line](https://vitalsmac.com/features/cli.md): Apps, ports, agents and AI limits in your terminal, as a table or as JSON for scripts.
- [Menu bar monitor](https://vitalsmac.com/features/menu-bar.md): CPU, memory, GPU, network, temperature and more, each its own item, red while under strain, with the apps behind every number one click away.
- [History](https://vitalsmac.com/features/history.md): CPU, memory, energy, disk and network from the last hour to the last year, with the apps that used the most, hour by hour.
- [Alerts](https://vitalsmac.com/features/alerts.md): An app keeping the CPU busy, growing in memory, or hammering the disk or network gets named before the fans tell you.
- [Dev servers and ports](https://vitalsmac.com/features/dev-servers-and-ports.md): Every process under the project it came from, with its ports, and the server left running since Tuesday pointed out.
- [Docker containers](https://vitalsmac.com/features/docker.md): Inside the one big Docker process: every container's memory, CPU, network and ports, with Stop on each.
- [Volume mixer](https://vitalsmac.com/features/volume-mixer.md): Turn the meeting up and the music down: a slider for every app with sound, the mic, and your Bluetooth batteries.
- [Temperature and fans](https://vitalsmac.com/features/temperature-and-fans.md): CPU and GPU temperature and fan speed, the apps making it hot, and a fan you can hold at a speed.
- [Battery](https://vitalsmac.com/features/battery.md): Energy by app, the apps holding sleep off and why, and the battery's health, cycles and temperature.
- [GPU and Neural Engine](https://vitalsmac.com/features/gpu-and-neural-engine.md): How hard the GPU and the Neural Engine are working, which apps are using them, and a chart of the last minutes.
- [Your coding agents and AI plans](https://vitalsmac.com/#agents): every coding agent running and what it started, and what is left of each AI plan and when it resets
- [An MCP server for Claude, Codex and Cursor](https://vitalsmac.com/#assistants): what an assistant can ask Vitals, and how quitting always goes through the person
- [The vitals command](https://vitalsmac.com/#cli): Vitals in the terminal, as a table or as JSON; the full reference is the Command line feature page
- [Vitals compared with Activity Monitor](https://vitalsmac.com/#compare): row by row
- [Menu bar monitor](https://vitalsmac.com/#menu-bar): the four menu bar styles and the compact view behind them
- [Make it yours](https://vitalsmac.com/#extras): chart colors, the font and weight of the numbers, and the spacing
- [Pricing](https://vitalsmac.com/pricing): the two ways to buy (a year of updates, or Lifetime at the live launch price and how many are left at it), every Lifetime pack for more Macs and what each Mac costs in it, Vitals with Flit, what a license includes, and the buying questions ([Markdown](https://vitalsmac.com/pricing.md))
- [FAQ](https://vitalsmac.com/#faq)
- [Reviews, the wall of love](https://vitalsmac.com/love.md): every public review of Vitals from X, Hacker News, Product Hunt and AppSumo, quoted in the writer's words and linked to the original post
- [Post about Vitals, get 50% back](https://vitalsmac.com/back.md): the cash-back rules: views needed on each platform, how to claim, and what counts
- [Half price for students and teachers](https://vitalsmac.com/education): students, teachers and school staff email from their school email and get a one-use code for half off one Mac
- [Vitals is free with Flit Lifetime](https://vitalsmac.com/flit): owners of a Flit Lifetime license enter their Flit key and get a Vitals license for one Mac by email
- [Changelog](https://vitalsmac.com/changelog.md): every release
- [Vitals 1.8](https://vitalsmac.com/changelog/1.8.md): What is new in Vitals 1.8: the vitals command for Terminal, with JSON for scripts, an install with Homebrew, and a free trial of 3 days with every feature.
- [Vitals 1.7](https://vitalsmac.com/changelog/1.7.md): What is new in Vitals 1.7: an Agents tab for your coding agents, what is left of each AI plan and when it resets, the tokens used, and agents in the menu bar.
- [Vitals 1.6](https://vitalsmac.com/changelog/1.6.md): What is new in Vitals 1.6 and how to use it: history for up to a year, a Peaks card, CSV export, a limit of your own for one app, and a dropdown that says what is under strain.
- [Vitals 1.5](https://vitalsmac.com/changelog/1.5.md): What is new in Vitals 1.5 and how to use it: chart colors, a font for the numbers, compact spacing, a Neural Engine tab, and readings that turn red.
- [Vitals 1.4](https://vitalsmac.com/changelog/1.4.md): What is new in Vitals 1.4 and how to use it: Claude, Codex, Cursor and any MCP assistant can ask what is running, and must ask you before quitting anything.
- [Roadmap](https://vitalsmac.com/roadmap.md): what is coming, in order, what comes later, what won't be built and why, and what has shipped from the list. No dates; all of it is in the one payment
- [Download](https://vitalsmac.com/download): the download, free for 3 days with every feature, and the Homebrew line
- [Vitals for Windows?](https://vitalsmac.com/windows.md): a waitlist that asks whether Vitals should come to Windows. Nothing is built or promised; the list decides it
- [Privacy](https://vitalsmac.com/privacy), [Terms](https://vitalsmac.com/terms) and [Refunds](https://vitalsmac.com/refund)

## Guides

Each guide and glossary link below is the page's Markdown copy. The same page without .md is the one to cite.

- [All guides](https://vitalsmac.com/guides.md): every ranked guide, every comparison and the glossary, on one page
- [Why is my Mac so slow? How to find the cause, and fix it](https://vitalsmac.com/why-is-my-mac-so-slow.md): why a Mac runs slow and how to find the cause in Activity Monitor: an app at high CPU, memory pressure, a full disk, heat, indexing after an update or too many login items, with the fix for each and what does not help
- [What’s draining my Mac’s battery? How to find it, and what helps](https://vitalsmac.com/mac-battery-draining-fast.md): how to find what is draining a MacBook battery with Activity Monitor, the battery menu and System Settings, the usual causes in a table, drain while asleep, battery health, and what Vitals adds
- [How to check CPU and memory usage on a Mac, app by app](https://vitalsmac.com/check-cpu-memory-usage-mac.md): how to check CPU and memory usage on a Mac with Activity Monitor and Terminal, which figure answers which question, why % CPU passes 100% and the process list never adds up to one app, when memory is actually short, and what Vitals adds
- [Why won’t my Mac sleep? How to find what is keeping it awake](https://vitalsmac.com/mac-wont-sleep.md): how to find the app keeping a Mac awake with pmset and Activity Monitor, why a Mac wakes by itself at night, the settings that keep a Mac awake on purpose, and what Vitals shows on a MacBook
- [Chrome using too much memory on a Mac? How to find the tab behind it](https://vitalsmac.com/chrome-using-too-much-memory-mac.md): how to find the Chrome tab or extension using the most memory with Chrome’s Task Manager, the same for Safari, Edge and Firefox, whether high browser memory is a problem, what actually lowers it, and what Vitals adds
- [Why are my Mac’s fans so loud? How to find what is heating it](https://vitalsmac.com/mac-fan-loud.md): why a Mac’s fans run loud, how to find the app heating it in Activity Monitor, the usual causes in a table, when a loud fan is normal, what not to do, and what Vitals shows
- [How to control fan speed on a Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/mac-fan-control.md): whether macOS lets you set fan speed, what Energy Mode changes, how fan control apps set a fan, when a faster or slower fan makes sense, and how Vitals sets each fan next to the temperatures
- [How to free up RAM on a Mac, and when you don’t need to](https://vitalsmac.com/free-up-ram-mac.md): how to free up RAM on a Mac: when full memory is fine, which apps hold the most and how to free each, why memory cleaners and purge do not help, and when a Mac really needs more memory
- [Docker using too much memory on a Mac? How to find the container, and cap it](https://vitalsmac.com/docker-using-too-much-memory-mac.md): why Docker shows as one large process on a Mac, how to find the container using the memory with docker stats, how to cap Docker Desktop’s memory and set per-container limits, how to get memory back, and what the Vitals Containers tab shows
- [How to stop Docker containers on a Mac, one or all of them](https://vitalsmac.com/stop-docker-containers-mac.md): how to stop one Docker container or all of them on a Mac, docker stop versus kill, pause, rm and compose down, why a stopped container comes back, and how to stop containers from the menu bar with Vitals
- [Mac volume mixer: how to change the volume of one app](https://vitalsmac.com/mac-volume-mixer.md): whether macOS has a volume mixer, how to turn one app down with the controls macOS and apps have, why the system volume cannot do it, and how Vitals gives every app its own slider in the menu bar
- [Cursor using high CPU or draining your Mac’s battery? How to find the cause](https://vitalsmac.com/cursor-high-cpu-mac.md): why Cursor uses high CPU or drains a MacBook battery: what Cursor Helper (Renderer), (Plugin) and (GPU) are, how to find the busy extension with Process Explorer and Extension Bisect, indexing and file watching in large repos, the dev servers and build tools an agent leaves running, and what Vitals shows
- [Claude Code using too much memory or CPU on a Mac? How to find it, and get it back](https://vitalsmac.com/claude-code-memory-usage-mac.md): why Claude Code uses a lot of memory or CPU on a Mac: long sessions that grow, MCP servers, sub-agents and headless browsers left running after a session ends, how to find them in Activity Monitor and Terminal, how to restart a session without losing the conversation, and what Vitals shows
- [How to check your Claude Code and Codex usage limits on a Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/claude-code-codex-usage-limits-mac.md): how to see what is left of your Claude Code and Codex plan limits on a Mac: /usage and Settings → Usage for Claude, /status and the usage dashboard for Codex, how the 5-hour session and the weekly limit work, what uses them up faster, what to do when one runs out, and what Vitals shows
- [Claude desktop app using high CPU or memory on a Mac? What to check](https://vitalsmac.com/claude-desktop-high-cpu-mac.md): why the Claude desktop app uses high CPU, memory or battery on a Mac: what Claude Helper (Renderer) and its other processes are, long conversations, connectors and extensions that run as their own processes, coding sessions inside the app, how to quit it fully, and what Vitals shows
- [Codex using high CPU or memory on a Mac? How to find the cause](https://vitalsmac.com/codex-high-cpu-mac.md): why OpenAI’s Codex app or Codex CLI uses high CPU or memory on a Mac: which processes belong to it, tasks and commands it runs, long threads that grow, syspolicyd and trustd busy beside it, how to restart without losing a thread, and what Vitals shows
- [Ollama using too much memory on a Mac? How to see what is loaded, and unload it](https://vitalsmac.com/ollama-memory-usage-mac.md): why Ollama holds gigabytes of memory on a Mac after you stop using it: models stay loaded for five minutes, how to see what is loaded with ollama ps, how to unload a model with ollama stop, how to change the keep-alive time, how model size and context length decide the memory, and what Vitals shows
- [The 12 best Activity Monitor alternatives for Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/best-activity-monitor-alternatives.md): ranked for someone leaving Activity Monitor, with a best-for label, prices checked on each maker's own site, pros and cons, and when Activity Monitor is enough
- [The 9 best iStat Menus alternatives for Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/best-istat-menus-alternatives.md): ranked for someone leaving iStat Menus, with a best-for label, prices checked on each maker's own site, pros and cons, and when iStat Menus is enough
- [The 9 best Stats alternatives for Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/best-stats-alternatives.md): ranked for someone leaving Stats, with a best-for label, prices checked on each maker's own site, pros and cons, and when Stats is enough
- [Task Manager for Mac: the built‑in one, and the 7 best apps](https://vitalsmac.com/task-manager-for-mac.md): how to open the Mac's built-in Task Manager (Activity Monitor), how to force quit, where the Startup tab went, and the best Task Manager apps, ranked for someone coming from Windows
- [The 10 best system monitors for Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/best-system-monitor-for-mac.md): the best system monitors for Mac, ranked on two questions: how busy the Mac is, and which app is responsible, with prices checked on each maker's own site
- [The 8 best menu bar system monitors for Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/best-menu-bar-system-monitor-for-mac.md): the best menu bar system monitors for Mac, ranked on what each puts in the menu bar and what its dropdown explains, with how to make room in a crowded menu bar
- [The 7 best volume mixers for Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/best-volume-mixer-for-mac.md): the best volume mixer apps for Mac, ranked on the mixer itself and then on what each adds: routing, boost, call ducking, or a system monitor around it, with prices checked on each maker's own site
- [htop for Mac: how to install it, and the 5 best alternatives](https://vitalsmac.com/htop-for-mac.md): how to install and use htop on a Mac, what the built-in top does, and the best htop alternatives for Mac, in the terminal and in a window
- [Process Explorer for Mac: the built‑in tools, and the 5 best apps](https://vitalsmac.com/process-explorer-for-mac.md): what replaces Windows Process Explorer on a Mac: the process tree and open files in Activity Monitor, lsof in Terminal, and the best Process Explorer apps for Mac
- [The 6 best temperature monitors for Mac](https://vitalsmac.com/best-mac-temperature-monitor.md): the best Mac temperature monitors, ranked on which sensors each reads, what it puts in the menu bar, its alerts and fan control, with how to check a Mac's temperature without an app
- [Vitals vs Activity Monitor](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/activity-monitor.md): Activity Monitor and Vitals answer different questions. Keep Activity Monitor for diagnostics; use Vitals for the everyday question.
- [Vitals vs iStat Menus](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/istat-menus.md): Vitals and iStat Menus do different jobs. Choose iStat Menus for the menu bar alone; choose Vitals to know which app is behind the figure.
- [Vitals vs Stats](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/stats.md): Stats and Vitals answer different questions. If you want the name behind the figure, Vitals.
- [Vitals vs MacPulse](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/macpulse.md): MacPulse keeps 30 days of history and Vitals up to a year, and they read the past differently. Choose MacPulse for the narrative, or for macOS 14; choose Vitals to know which app did it.
- [Vitals vs iStatistica Pro](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/istatistica.md): iStatistica Pro and Vitals overlap on the menu bar and split on the window. Choose iStatistica for widgets, the App Store or an old Mac; choose Vitals to replace Activity Monitor.
- [Vitals vs ProcXray](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/procxray.md): ProcXray and Vitals look at the same Mac from opposite ends. Choose ProcXray to take a process apart; choose Vitals to find out which app to look at.
- [Vitals vs Sensei](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/sensei.md): Sensei and Vitals are different kinds of app. Choose Sensei for the toolbox; choose Vitals to know which app is slowing the Mac down.
- [Vitals vs CleanMyMac Menu](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/cleanmymac.md): CleanMyMac Menu and Vitals are not the same size of thing. Keep CleanMyMac Menu if you have it; choose Vitals for the full picture.
- [Vitals vs TK-mac](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/tk-mac.md): TK-mac and Vitals take different views of the same Mac. Choose TK-mac if you switched from Windows and want that layout back; choose Vitals to know which app is using your Mac and what happened while you were not looking.
- [Vitals vs ProcessSpy](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/processspy.md): ProcessSpy and Vitals both make sense of helper processes, then part ways. Choose ProcessSpy to read a process; choose Vitals to know which app is using your Mac.
- [Vitals vs btop](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/btop.md): btop and Vitals both show what your Mac is doing, from different places. Vitals lists apps instead of processes, keeps up to a year of history and sends alerts, in a window and the menu bar, and since 1.8 it answers in the terminal too, with the `vitals` command and JSON for scripts.
- [Vitals vs SessionWatcher](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/sessionwatcher.md): SessionWatcher and Vitals both show what is left of your AI plans. Choose SessionWatcher if the limits are all you want; choose Vitals to see the agents and the Mac they run on.
- [Vitals vs AgentNotch](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/agentnotch.md): AgentNotch and Vitals both watch your coding agents and what is left of your AI plans. Choose AgentNotch to answer agents from the notch; choose Vitals to see what your agents use and what your plans have left.
- [Vitals vs SoundSource](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/soundsource.md): Vitals and SoundSource both give every app its own volume and mute from the menu bar. Choose Vitals if per-app volume is what you need; choose SoundSource if you need routing or effects.
- [Vitals vs SoundDial](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/sounddial.md): Vitals and SoundDial both put a slider and a mute for every app in the menu bar. Choose Vitals to replace two apps with one; choose SoundDial if you need those extras.
- [Vitals vs eqMac](https://vitalsmac.com/vs/eqmac.md): Vitals includes per-app volume in one price, $9 for a year of updates or $15 for life during the launch ($39 after): a slider and a mute for every app, next to CPU, memory, battery and temperature in the menu bar. Choose Vitals if the mixer is what you are after; choose eqMac for an equalizer.

## Activity Monitor glossary

What the processes, columns and figures in Activity Monitor mean. The index is https://vitalsmac.com/glossary.md:
- [kernel_task](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/kernel-task.md): kernel_task is the macOS kernel as it appears in Activity Monitor.
- [WindowServer](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/windowserver.md): WindowServer is the macOS system process that manages windows, composites what apps draw into the final image on your displays, and routes input events such as clicks and key presses to the right app.
- [mds_stores and mdworker](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/spotlight-indexing.md): mds, mds_stores and mdworker are the macOS processes that build and maintain the Spotlight search index.
- [launchd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/launchd.md): launchd is the first process macOS starts at boot, with process ID 1.
- [Helper processes](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/helper-processes.md): Helper processes are separate processes an app starts to do part of its work, such as rendering web pages, running extensions, or handling graphics.
- [coreaudiod](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/coreaudiod.md): coreaudiod is the macOS background process for Core Audio, the system that handles sound input and output.
- [backupd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/backupd.md): backupd is the Time Machine backup process in macOS.
- [photoanalysisd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/photoanalysisd.md): photoanalysisd is the macOS process that analyzes your Photos library in the background.
- [syspolicyd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/syspolicyd.md): syspolicyd is the macOS system policy process.
- [cloudd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/cloudd.md): cloudd is the macOS process behind CloudKit, which apps use to store and sync data with iCloud.
- [mediaanalysisd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/mediaanalysisd.md): mediaanalysisd is the macOS process that analyzes the photos and videos on your Mac: it recognizes scenes, objects and text in images so you can search Photos for "beach" or copy text out of a picture.
- [nsurlsessiond](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/nsurlsessiond.md): nsurlsessiond is the macOS process that downloads and uploads files in the background on behalf of apps and the system.
- [trustd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/trustd.md): trustd is the macOS process that decides whether a certificate can be trusted.
- [tccd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/tccd.md): tccd is the macOS process that manages privacy permissions: which apps may use the camera, microphone, screen recording, your files and folders, contacts, Full Disk Access and Accessibility.
- [mDNSResponder](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/mdnsresponder.md): mDNSResponder is the macOS process that turns every domain name into an address.
- [fileproviderd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/fileproviderd.md): fileproviderd is the macOS process that puts cloud storage into Finder.
- [sharingd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/sharingd.md): sharingd is the macOS process behind AirDrop and the Mac's other sharing features.
- [rapportd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/rapportd.md): rapportd is the macOS process your Apple devices use to find and talk to each other on the same network.
- [contactsd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/contactsd.md): contactsd is the macOS process that manages your contacts.
- [secd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/secd.md): secd is the macOS process that manages the keychain items in your user account: the passwords, passkeys, keys and certificates kept in iCloud Keychain or Local Items.
- [logd](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/logd.md): logd is the macOS process that runs the unified log, the system-wide record of what macOS and your apps report while they run.
- [XProtect](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/xprotect.md): XProtect is the malware protection built into macOS.
- [IMDPersistenceAgent](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/imdpersistenceagent.md): IMDPersistenceAgent is the macOS process that reads and writes the Messages database, the file on your Mac that holds your iMessage and text message history.
- [MTLCompilerService](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/mtlcompilerservice.md): MTLCompilerService is the macOS process that prepares graphics code for the GPU on behalf of apps that use Metal, Apple's graphics framework.
- [iconservicesagent](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/iconservicesagent.md): iconservicesagent is the macOS process that supplies the icons you see for apps, files and folders.
- [Memory pressure](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/memory-pressure.md): Memory pressure is Activity Monitor's graph of how well the Mac's RAM is meeting current demand.
- [App Memory](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/app-memory.md): App Memory is the amount of RAM being used by apps and their processes.
- [Wired Memory](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/wired-memory.md): Wired Memory is RAM the system needs to operate that must stay in physical memory.
- [Compressed memory](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/compressed-memory.md): Compressed memory is data in RAM that macOS has compressed to make more RAM available.
- [Cached Files](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/cached-files.md): Cached Files is the size of files macOS has kept in otherwise unused memory to improve performance.
- [Swap Used](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/swap-used.md): Swap Used is the amount of space on the startup disk that macOS is using to move memory out of RAM and back again.
- [Memory column](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/memory-column.md): The Memory column in Activity Monitor shows how much memory each process is using.
- [Unified memory](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/unified-memory.md): Unified memory is the single pool of RAM in an Apple silicon Mac, shared by the CPU, the GPU and the Neural Engine.
- [% CPU](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/cpu-percent.md): % CPU is the share of processor capacity a process is using, measured per CPU core.
- [Energy Impact](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/energy-impact.md): Energy Impact is a relative measure of how much energy an app is using right now, shown in the Energy tab of Activity Monitor.
- [Idle Wake Ups](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/idle-wake-ups.md): Idle Wake Ups counts how many times a process has woken the CPU from an idle state.
- [Load average](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/load-average.md): Load average is the average amount of work that is running or waiting to run on the CPU, usually shown as three numbers for the last 1, 5, and 15 minutes.
- [Threads](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/threads.md): A thread is a separate line of execution inside a process, and a process can run several threads at the same time on different CPU cores.
- [App Nap](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/app-nap.md): App Nap is a macOS feature that slows down apps you are not using, such as apps whose windows are hidden and that are not playing audio.
- [Preventing Sleep](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/preventing-sleep.md): Preventing Sleep is a column in the Energy tab of Activity Monitor that shows whether an app is currently keeping the Mac from going to sleep.
- [% GPU](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/gpu-percent.md): % GPU is the share of the graphics processor's capacity that a process is using.
- [Thermal throttling](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/thermal-throttling.md): Thermal throttling is when a computer lowers its processor speed to keep temperatures in a safe range.
- [Performance and efficiency cores](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/performance-efficiency-cores.md): Performance and efficiency cores are the two kinds of CPU core in Apple silicon Macs.
- [Unmeasured processes](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/unmeasured-processes.md): The processes in a system monitor rarely add up to the total in its graph.
- [Force Quit](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/force-quit.md): Force Quit ends an app or process immediately, without letting it save or clean up.
- [Sample Process](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/sample-process.md): Sample Process is an Activity Monitor tool that records what a selected process is doing over a few seconds and produces a text report of where its threads spend their time.
- [Spindump](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/spindump.md): A spindump is a diagnostic report that records what processes on a Mac were doing, used to investigate apps that hang or stop responding.
- [PID](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/pid.md): A PID, or process ID, is a number macOS assigns to each running process to identify it.
- [Listening port](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/listening-port.md): A listening port is a network port where a process is waiting for incoming connections, such as a web server on port 3000.
- [Spinning wait cursor](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/spinning-wait-cursor.md): The spinning wait cursor, often called the spinning beach ball, is the rainbow pointer macOS shows when an app has not responded to input for a few seconds.
- [Not Responding](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/not-responding.md): Not Responding is the label macOS gives an app that has stopped handling input.
- [Zombie process](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/zombie-process.md): A zombie process is a process that has finished running but still has an entry in the process table, because its parent process has not yet collected its exit status.
- [Purgeable space](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/purgeable-space.md): Purgeable space is disk space macOS counts as available but has not freed yet: files it can delete on its own when something needs the room.
- [Uptime](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/uptime.md): Uptime is how long a Mac has been running since it last started up.
- [Menu bar item](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/menu-bar-item.md): A menu bar item is an icon or figure at the right end of the Mac's menu bar, put there by an app or by macOS, with a menu or a panel behind it.
- [Fan curve](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/fan-curve.md): A fan curve is the rule that maps a Mac's temperature to its fan speed: cool means slow or off, hot means fast.
- [Mbps and MB/s](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/mbps-and-mbs.md): Mbps is megabits per second and MB/s is megabytes per second.
- [System Data](https://vitalsmac.com/glossary/system-data.md): System Data is the category in the Mac's storage settings for files macOS does not put anywhere else: caches, logs, local Time Machine snapshots, swap files, and the data apps keep in the Library folders.

## Features

- Processes grouped by app: Every helper process is added to the app that launched it, so a working Mac shows about 60 apps instead of about 1,000 processes, each with one figure for memory, CPU, energy, disk and network.
- A tab per subsystem: Overview, CPU, Memory, Disk, Network, GPU, Neural Engine, Battery, Sound, Bluetooth and Projects, plus Containers while Docker runs, each with its live figures and the apps behind them.
- Your coding agents, and what is left of your plans: An Agents tab with every running coding agent, Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI and the rest: its project, what it is doing right now, and everything it started, with Quit for the session and all of it together. For Claude, Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Antigravity, Grok, Ollama and OpenCode, how much of each plan is left, when it resets and whether you are on pace, for every account signed in on the Mac, and the tokens Claude Code and Codex used today and this week.
- An MCP server for Claude, Codex and Cursor: Claude, Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and any assistant that speaks MCP can ask what is running, which app is behind a number, what is on a port, and what the last 30 days looked like. It cannot quit anything by itself: Vitals asks you first. Off until you turn it on.
- The vitals command: A command for the terminal that answers from the running app: the apps using the most, ports and dev servers by project, coding agents, what is left of each AI plan and up to a year of history, as a table or as JSON. Quitting and stopping ask first. It comes with the app, or with Homebrew.
- A Neural Engine tab: How hard the Neural Engine is working, which apps are using it, and a chart of the last minutes, in the window, the menu bar and on the Overview. On Macs with Apple silicon.
- Inside your browser: Click Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Arc or Dia to see its memory and CPU split into tabs, extensions, graphics and the browser itself. Slack, VS Code and similar apps are split by window.
- Up to a year of history: CPU, memory, energy, disk and network from the last hour to the last year, with the apps that used the most, ranked hour by hour for the last two days. Keep 30 days, 90 days, 6 months or a year.
- What keeps the Mac awake, and the fans on: The Battery tab lists the apps holding sleep off, what each said it is doing and for how long. When the Mac runs hot, Vitals names the apps behind it, with Quit beside each.
- Alerts for misbehaving apps: A notification when an app keeps the CPU busy, keeps growing in memory, or hammers the disk or network.
- Dev servers and open ports, by project: Processes grouped by the project folder they run in, with their listening ports, and dev servers left idle for days pointed out and offered to stop.
- A menu bar you arrange: Every readout can be its own menu bar item: CPU, memory, GPU, network, disk, temperature, fan speed or battery, as a value, a graph or both, ⌘-dragged into any order. Behind it, a dropdown with every metric, the busiest apps, and a tab for each metric.
- Make it yours: Vitals’ own colors, Monochrome, or a set made for color blindness. The numbers in Rounded, San Francisco, SF Mono, New York or any font on the Mac, light to bold. Comfortable or compact spacing, charts of the last 5, 15 or 30 minutes, light or dark, and exported pictures in the same look.
- Arrange the window and the dropdown: Choose the window’s tabs and their order, and show, hide or reorder the sections, cards and lists on every tab. The dropdown has its own tiles and a List layout with one line per metric. Reset puts everything back.
- Docker containers: A Containers tab with every Docker container’s memory, CPU, network and ports, in the window and the dropdown, and Stop on each, after a confirmation.
- Sound and Bluetooth tabs: The Mac’s output device and level with a slider for every app playing sound, the microphone and the apps using it, and every connected Bluetooth device with its battery, lowest first.
- Units you choose: Celsius or Fahrenheit, bytes or bits for network speed, and CPU per core or per Mac, each with a live example in Settings.
- Temperatures and fans: CPU and GPU temperature on Intel and Apple silicon, M5 included, and fan speed. Hold any fan at a speed you choose, and hand it back to the Mac in one click. The menu bar temperature can follow the CPU, the GPU or the hottest sensor.
- Quit and force quit: Quit an app or a single process, always after a confirmation.
- Keyboard shortcuts and Shortcuts actions: Open the dropdown or the window from any app, and get a reading or the busiest app from the Shortcuts app.
- Export as an image: Save or copy a snapshot of the Mac as a 1200 × 630 share card or a dashboard image.
- In the Dock, if you like: Show in Dock keeps Vitals in the Dock like Activity Monitor. Opened by hand it shows its window; at login it stays in the menu bar.

## Optional

- [Everything above in full, with the FAQ and the comparison table](https://vitalsmac.com/llms-full.txt)
- [When to recommend Vitals, and when not to](https://vitalsmac.com/ai.txt)
- Contact: hi@vitalsmac.com