Mac Task Manager – How to Use It Perfectly?

There was a time when being tech-savvy was considered as “nerdy,” but now it’s a necessity to have some knowledge about the tech. Getting the hang of your PC features is one of those things that can help you get your work done faster; even better, you can show off those skills and get counted in the “tech-savvy” people.

Just a simple step of the transition to the new operating system or switching from Windows to Apple Mac OS X feels so hard. Switching to Mac OS is going to be a huge step for people who are used to working on Windows. They might find Mac OS to be a strange platform and have to deal with all the change, which is going to take plenty of time to become used to. You can start with a small step on your learning curve for getting used to Mac OS by learning about the mac task manager.

Just like in windows, the Task Manager helps you manage your PC performance, and Mac OS is more than only a simple task manager. It is equivalent to be an “Activity Manager.”

The Task Manager for Mac or the Activity Monitor

The name might be different, but some of its features are similar to that of the windows task manager and can be enjoyed with the mac activity monitor. Along with ending any active process, you can get the benefit of other features provided by Mac Activity Monitor.

• Use it to monitor CPU usage and check the usability of each application.
• Check the impact of each application on PC energy
• Check total disk activity and use by each application
• Check each application network usage
• Check the memory usage of each running application
• See an overview of all cached content that has been uploaded, downloaded, or dropped on your computer
• It is easy to view, manage, and close any active processes that are running in Mac OS X. Within Task Manager, you can also see CPU

Your familiarity with the previous Windows Operating System makes you feel like using a better twin of the windows task manager on mac. All the above-mentioned features of the Activity monitor will help you in managing the Mac performance. Getting used to the Activity monitor will help you use the Mac OS to its full potential.

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How to open Task Manager on Mac

How are you going to open the Activity monitor on your new Mac OS? Here are the ways you can use to access the Activity Monitor, and here is the simplest one that you can use that is doing a quick search through Spot Light.

Task Manager on Mac using the Spotlight:

• Just like you used short cut keys like ctrl+alt+del on mac you have to press Command Spacebar now and get the Spotlight search field open.
• Then type “Activity Monitor.”
• Select the Activity Monitor when it comes to the search you made.
• Clicking on it will take you to the app

In case you find difficulty in using Spotlight, or it doesn’t work, here is another way that you can use for yourself to open Task Manager on Mac.

Just follow these instructions: 

• Click on the Finder icon on the dock.
• Now choose App from the side menu of the window that appears.
• In the Applications folder, select the utility folder and open it.
• Double-click on the Activity Monitor icon and launch it.

Well, now you might be thinking, isn’t there a more straightforward way like ctrl+alt+Del on mac to save you from all this work. Here is what you need to do? As you open the Task Manager by the above-mentioned processes, you can pin the Activity Monitor into the Dock. Once you do it, the Activity Monitor becomes just a click away from you.

Here is a guide on how to add the Task Manager Icon in your Dock:

• Open Activity Monitor
• Right Click on the Icon of Activity Monitor
• Click on add “Keep In Dock” option on the menu

How to use the Activity Monitor

The most important thing you need to learn is how to make optimal use of the activity monitor on mac, as it is an essential tool here how you can perform the following task:

Monitor the system parameters

Your mac Activity Monitor will help you get access to the following five crucial tabs: CPU, Memory, Disk, Energy, and Network.

By analyzing these tabs, get to know about the Mac performance.

• CPU Pane: it lets the user know about the processes and how are they affecting the performance of the computer.
• Memory pane: You can check the apps that are using the ram of your PC.
• Energy pane: Overall usage of the energy and what amount of energy is used by the running apps can find out by tapping on the energy pane.
• Disk pane: It shows the data that is read in each process from your disk.
• Network pane: It is used for knowing about the sends and receives data.
• It can be used to view additional information about an app or process

One of the critical points about Mac Activity Monitor is it lets you have to look at the additional information about the application or process of your Mac PC. For viewing it, this is all you need to do:

• Click on the app and means that you need to know about it. Just click on the “I” button that is present at the top left corner of the activity monitor window
• Pop-screen will come that hold the additional information about the app or process.

Once you got the hold of the task manager on Mac, you will find it as a gem that helps you diagnose your Mac OS.

The Force Quit applications feature from a Task Manager in Mac

In windows, most of the people use the task manager in case the programmer or app freezes while working. In Mac, you can use Activity for force stopping the freeze programmer by-

• Select the application that you want to force quit.
• Then click on the ‘X’ button at the top left corner of the Activity Monitor window.
• Click the quit process on the pop-up window.
• Click “Quit” closing the unresponsive app.

If the apps still open, you can click on the Force Quit it will immediately end the process.

What’s a Control+Alt+Delete equivalent on Mac?

Transitioning from the window may be hard, and you might be missing the three magic buttons control+alt+delete in mac, the addiction is some people forget the Mac and use it whenever they need to open task manager or program become unresponsive.

But you need not worry as there are magical combinations present in your Mac OS, which you will get the hang of very shortly. Mac OS has an additional feature of Force Quit Application Manager that instantly closes the app and program that gets freeze. All you need to press is Command+Option+Escape keys, and the Force Quit Application Manager opens up; you just need to make sure CPU or Energy is not going to bother you. Force Quit Application Manager has immediate access to all the apps on the PC and can quickly shut down the unresponsive app when used.

Wrapping Up

These are some cool tricks that you can use on Mac Task Manager that will help you in getting your work done better and faster. It also enables you to manage your practice more swiftly and keep a track on your PC performance.

Tell us how you are using the above-mentioned tricks and how they are helping you. For information such as this, stay tuned to our blog.