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- How To See Apps Running In Background Mac
All-mighty Mac system monitor
- Tap Settings General Background App Refresh, then scroll down the list of apps. If you see anything that you don’t want refreshing itself in the background, go ahead and flip the appropriate.
- Only apps and extensions that you've explicitly installed are allowed to run in the background - a standard Web page cannot continue running after you've closed down the relevant browser tab.
Show All Running Apps On Mac Using Force Quit Applications Manager. Another method to check all the Running apps and programs on your Mac is through the Force Quit applications manager on Mac. Click on the Apple icon in the top menu bar of your Mac and then click on Force Quit Application in the drop-down menu (See image below).
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
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
Stop Apps Running In Background Mac
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
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
Apps Running In Background Mac
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.
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Every device sooner or later begins to run slower and slower. Even the Mac, which is a highly-efficient Apple product, starts to slow down and becomes a real pain to use over time. If you are a heavy Mac user this is especially true and you are more likely to experience performance issues.
There are several other reasons why your Mac might be running slower:
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If you find that your Mac is starting to lag in performance, freeze up, or just acting strangely, it’s probably time to optimize it with an efficient Mac cleaning tool.
1. Mac Disk is getting full
Nothing slows down a Mac more than having too much on your hard drive. If you can increase available disc space on your Mac, you’re sure to see an increase in your Mac’s speed.
How to fix it: Clean up your Mac Disk
Unfortunately, doing this manually isn’t as easy as it sounds. Cleaning up old movie files, organizing your Desktop, and searching your Mac for old files you don’t need is the easy part. However, the hard part is cleaning up your system and figuring out all the stuff that can be safely removed for more space. The best option is to use a Mac cleaner, like Cleaner One Pro. It offers all-in-one Mac cleaning features including a disk cleaner for junk files, big files and duplicate files.
Uninstalling apps and deleting useless files from your Mac is easy, but the residual junk or cache files left behind often fill up your disk space and clutter the system. When the free space on your drive gets really low, your Mac stops operating efficiently and becomes very slow. Cleaner One Pro frees up your disk space by removing all the unnecessary and unwanted files in just one click.
How To Quit Apps Running In Background Mac
2. Outdated Mac OS
Your Mac’s OS X is extremely important to how well it performs. An older OS X typically runs slower — that’s why Apple releases new OS X’s every year or so.
How to fix it: Update your OS X.
Having the latest version of OS X is a good practice (the latest version right now is MacOS Catalina 10.15.4). Don’t think of it as adding more junk to your already-slow Mac — think of it as new software that makes your Mac run more smoothly. So, head over to the Mac App Store download and install the latest version, once you’ve checked if it’s compatible with the model/year of your Mac. You’ll probably see a nice performance boost.
3. Startup is slowing you down
When you start your Mac, a lot of things get loaded in the background. Not only do they slow down your Mac on startup, but they continue to use up resources the whole time you’re using your Mac.
How to fix it: Manage your Startup Items.
Give your Mac a clean start and make OS X run faster. When you don’t manage your Startup Items, it’s like making your Mac run a sprint with a gigantic, book-filled backpack — it’s going to take a bit longer for it to get moving, right? Lighten the load on your Mac.
Speed up your Mac’s startup time by removing unnecessary startup apps. Go to your System Preferences > Users & Groups, then click your username. Now, select Login Items, click the name of an application you don’t need to launch during startup, then click the “-” symbol located below the list to the left. This will remove the application from the list and it will no longer be loaded on startup. This should help a lot to speed up your Mac’s long startup time.
4. Too many things running in the background
Due to increased workload, (for example, when you open multiple heavy applications simultaneously), your RAM tends to get cluttered. Your RAM should have enough space to read and write contents efficiently without any lag. When this memory gets low, your Mac system or apps may become slow or unresponsive.
How to fix it: System Monitor and Memory Free
Activity Monitor shows you which resources various processes are using on your system. Check the list of apps and processes that are running on your Mac in real-time. Quitting unnecessary apps that take up a lot of processing power could make a huge difference in speeding up your slow Mac. Be careful not to remove any critical or necessary processes!
Seems pretty complex, right? Yet there is a much simpler way to do this. With Cleaner One Pro you can easily monitor your system status. Cleaner One Pro’s smart activity monitor lets you easily view your system’s network usage and CPU usage in real time. This allows you to optimize your Mac on your own whenever you experience performance or speed issues.
5. Overloaded Browser Cache and History
Sometimes, even simple tasks seem to run slowly and you suddenly think ‘Why have I spent my precious dollars on this dumb device!’ Well, your anxiety is genuine but you can do something about it. There can be a number of reasons why your Mac is behaving this way and low hard drive space due to an overloaded system and browser cache may be one of them.
How to fix it: Clear Cache on Your Mac.
You can either clear your browser cache manually or you can use Cleaner One Pro’s simple one-click feature to do it for you.
[→ Read more about Clear Cache on Mac ←]
But it all begins with cleaning up your Mac.
Cleaner One Pro: An Easy Way to Speed Up Your Slow Mac!
Cleaner One Pro is the Best FREE Mac Cleaner app that offers all-in-one Mac cleaning features including; Memory Free, Disk Clean, Uninstall App, and more. It offers great solutions to get rid of all the culprits that slow down your Mac.
Cleaner One Pro also works well on MacOS Catalina. So, if you have been looking for a safe and reliable app to make your slow Mac run faster, Cleaner One Pro is the answer!
How Cleaner One Pro Works
Apps Running In Background On Mac
Cleaner One Pro is a smart app that comes bundled with three super amazing features to make your Mac work like new again, including – Disk Clean, Memory Free and System Monitoring.
Cleaner One Pro also includes an intelligent app manager, as part of system monitoring, ensuring your Mac runs smoothly and does not slow down or freeze up while you’re using your Mac. Also, with an interactive interface, the app is very easy and simple to use. In just one click, you can clean up the disk or purge the memory of your slow Mac to speed it up and enjoy much improved performance.
Close Apps Running In Background On My Mac
Is Cleaner One Pro really worth downloading?
When you own such a high-end, expensive Mac device, why suffer from lagging issues! Your Mac should be capable of always delivering the best performance so you can complete your work on time and without any stress or hassle.
Cleaner One Pro is definitely worth downloading because it refreshes the performance and speeds up your Mac all at NO COST! Cleaner One Pro is also safe. Its simplicity in terms of interface and usage makes Cleaner One Pro really worth trying. So, the next time you find your Mac running slow, make sure you use Cleaner One Pro.