High CPU usage may indicate blocked vents, faulty temperature sensors, corrupt third-party kernel extensions, and incompatible hardware/peripheral devices.

But in response, the CPU load of “kernel_task” spikes up. In other words, if your CPU runs hot, the kernel gets activated to cool down your Mac. Its main purpose is to regulate the CPU temperature by making the processor less available to the processes. “kernel_task” is the process that displays important metrics from the kernel. The kernel loads the core macOS foundation and essential drivers. Once you close the tab or delete unused extensions, CPU usage will be reduced. To see this in practice, press Shift + Esc to open Chrome Task Manager and inspect its CPU + Memory usage.īy nature, a browser will use excessive CPU if you open too many tabs that display high-resolution photos and videos. It includes all the logical functions in separate processes: the main (browser) process, GPU process, and dedicated process for each tab and extension. Press Cmd + Option + Esc to open the “Force Quit” dialog box.Ī frozen app appears in red with the label “Not Responding.” Select that app and click “Force Quit.” If you’re dealing with an app that won’t respond to the Force Quit method or Activity Monitor fails to open, consult our guide on using Terminal to force quit an app.Ī web browser is based on multi-process architecture. When an app consumes excessive CPU, it may hang or stop responding to user input. Managing Applications That Consume Excessive CPU on Mac Helpful Hint: wondering if an app has been optimized for your Apple Silicon Mac? We show you how to check.

Apps and related user processes run on either E or P cores with a preference towards P cores. Most system-based processes (Spotlight indexing, Time Machine backups) use E cores.

Idle Wake Ups is the number of times a process woke up from the sleep state.įor Apple Silicon Macs, you’ll understand how the Icestorm (or Efficient) and Firestorm (or Performance) cores behave.

CPU Time is the length of time a process has been active since the last startup.

%CPU is the percentage of total processor capacity the process consumes, e.g., the processor capability.

The CPU tab highlights some important metrics.

Mac cpu usage