All-mighty Mac system monitor
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Control CPU, memory, and whatnot with iStat Menus app.
Tap Settings General Background App Refresh, then switch the main “Background App Refresh” to the “Off” position. If you’ve already customized which apps can refresh themselves and which can’t. One of the easiest ways to slow down your Mac is by overloading on launch applications. After a year or so, you might not even realize what apps are starting in the background. While apps like Spotify jump up front and center when they launch, alerting the user, other apps are happy to chug away in the menubar with nary a user interaction for. When I am doing some work on my macbook pro, Mail app's main window keeps popping up in the background, it even pops up when I watch movies by interrupting full screen. This is so frustrating, I can't find out solution to this, googled and went to many discussion forums, no luck, suggestions that I found are very old and outdated. By hitting the ‘X’ logo at the top left-hand side of the Activity Monitor you’ll be able to Quit and even Force Quit an application that’s running either in the foreground or background.
Watermark maker free download for mac. 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.
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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
https://gatetree.weebly.com/dark-souls-3-fix-patch-download.html. 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.
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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.
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By Nathan E. Malpass, Last updated: August 27, 2019
Frozen program bothering you all day long? Well look no further than this guide on how to close a program on Mac
There’s nothing worse than getting into the groove of things, maybe you were winning a game or perhaps you were really making great headway with your workload for school or work and then for some reason or another the screen freezes on you. There’s nothing more infuriating and off-putting than to stare at a nonresponsive screen. Lucky for you there’s a way this article is a how-to force close a program on Mac and it can help you get rid of that pesky locked screen.
Now since you are looking for ways on how to force a program to close on a Mac, it would be good to know that there are several methods to do this and all of them will likely help you with your problem. https://bloompowerful.weebly.com/808-mafia-vst-download.html. We will tackle them one by one and you can test them as it happens.
1. Close A Program with Apple Menu
This is what Apple suggests to use when you are looking for top methods on how to frozen program on Mac. It is a pretty easy method and usually should work for most users. Simply follow the steps below and you should be saying goodbye to that frozen window with a few easy steps.
Step 1: Click on the Apple menu and find the Force Quit option
Step 2: After pressing the Force Quit option, you should see a new Force Quit window that will open up, it should have all the names of the programs running at the moment
Step 3: Highlight the program you want to Force Quit and press the button, then you are done
2. Close A Program with Mac Shortcut
Perhaps you are too angry at your mouse and want to ignore it or you threw it against the wall in frustration, please don’t do the latter, or maybe even the mouse is frozen because of the program, well, this might be the option for you among all the how to close a program on Mac options here.
Step 1: Press the following buttons altogether Command + Option + Esc, this will open the Force Quit window
Step 2: Once more choose and highlight the program or app you want to forcibly close
How to download movies from hulu on mac. Step 3: Press the Force Quit button and that should just about finish your problems
3. Close A Program with Activity Monitor
Now if you just switched from a Windows operating system to a Mac just lately, you might be more comfortable using the Activity Monitor. The Activity Monitor is a surprisingly similar program to the Task Manager that Windows operating systems use and if you prefer this option, it shouldn’t be a problem at all either. Take these steps to open and use the Activity Monitor.
Step 1: Open the Activity Monitor by going on your Finder and search for the Applications, move on to Utilities and there you will see Activity Monitor. Of course, if you are familiar and use the Spotlight search then you can simply type in Activity Monitor and you should gain access to it right away
Step 2: There are several sections here but the leftmost is what you’ll likely need. That window should have a list of the programs and processes that are running and for sure your crashed program is among them. Highlight said program and proceed to the next step
Step 3: While the selected frozen program is highlighted, press the Quit Process button and you should finally close that program
4. Close A Program with Dock Panel
As opposed to the Closing a program with a Mac Shortcut option listed as second on this how to force close a program on Mac, this one relies on your mouse or touchpad. Take these steps to get that program to stop running.
Step 1: Bring your pointer down to the dock and find that program that is giving you trouble
Step 2: Click on it and a list of options should open up. You’ll notice that the Quit option that is usually found on the bottom of the programs usually has been changed to Force Quit. The system has likely recognized the error but needs a command to forcibly shut the door on the program, highlight the Force Quit
Step 3: Simply press to help your Mac to decidedly slam the door on the said program
5. Close A Program with Terminal
Now assuming you do enjoy working with the Terminal and want to use it, of course, the Terminal has the capability to shut down a program. This process is shockingly easy and a good option on this list of how to force a program close on Mac. Take these steps to make sure that the rebellious program gets shut down hard.
Step 1: Open the terminal, you can use the Finder, a shortcut or even Spotlight Search to open up the terminal, whatever your choice is all of them should open that black little window on your screen
Step 2: Type out this command - killall [application name]. Here is where it gets a little tricky, as you need to know the program’s exact name. Usually it can be found on the title bar of the unresponsive program but there are exceptions to that, however, it shouldn’t be too impossible to figure out all together
Step 3: After finding and typing out the right name, press enter to input the command and it should just about do the trick
6. Close A Program with Restarting Your Mac
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There are times that a program can be a real handful, in fact, you’ve tried a few of the steps above on how to close a frozen program on Mac but still, it won’t work. When all else fails, it might be time to restart your Mac altogether.
Sure, the program is still open as you restart the Mac but it won’t be open when you get back, will it? Quickbooks pro 2011 mac download. Instead of steps for this one, let’s list down the methods on how you can actually restart the Mac.
Option 1: Press the power button and when the window opens up, simply choose Restart and the rest is history
Option 2: Find the Apple menu and scroll down to the Restart option to get your Mac to shut down and start up again
Option 3: One of the best methods as it even works when the entire Mac is frozen still and refuses to comply with any input or press of the keyboard or mouse. Press the following altogether Control + Command + Power Button and that should do the trick
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7. Close A Program with Factory Settings
Alright, admittedly this is pretty extreme option among all of the other choices on this how to close a program on Mac, however, it will do the job and then some. Again, this is the last resort and should only be used if a number of programs continue to crash and you have experienced this happening time and time again, which is strange as Macs are known to be quite stable in most options. Now, if you are really going to go through with this option, it would be ideal that you back everything up, assuming you have stuff that needs to be saved, which most likely, you do. After that is done, take these steps to complete the reset the factory settings of your Mac.
Step 1: Restart your Mac, please use any of the options mentioned in the prior step in order to get your Mac to shut down and boot up
Step 2: Make sure to press and hold the following buttons - Command + R, this will have your MacOS utilities window to open
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Step 3: Find the Disk Utility option and continue forward
Step 4: Find your startup disk somewhere on the left side and choose the option Erase
Step 5: You can now proceed to open the Format menu and then simply find the option of Mac OS Extended, enter a name in the middle, and click Erase
Step 6: At this point, you can quit Disk Utility
Step 7: When presented with the option, choose the Reinstall MacOS and follow the instructions as they come along, then you should be rid of that frozen program
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After all of that, you can now see that there are several methods open to you on how to force close a program on Mac. All of them are viable options and the last option, in fact, is quite extreme. However, it is also good to note if a particular program is giving you a problem quite often it might be best to uninstall it completely and start all over. There are many ways to do this but PowerMyMac - Uninstaller is capable of remedying that problem as quickly as a few steps while having many other nice and nifty options to help you maximize the use of your Mac.
>Tricks >TOP 7 Ways: How to Close A Program on Mac
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