Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor enables you to get information about the various processes running on your computer. It also displays, in graphical format, CPU activity, memory usage, and disk and network statistics. You may find this information helpful if you are a programmer or network administrator or you are trying to troubleshoot a computer problem.

Tip

• A processis a set of programming codes that performs a task.

To monitor computer activity

1.	Open the Activity Monitor icon in the Utilities folder (Figure 1). The Activity Monitor window appears (Figure 2). Figure 2. The Activity Monitor window shows a list of all processes running on your computer.
2.	To view only specific types of processes, choose an option from the pop-up menu at the top of the window (Figure 3). The list of processes in the top half of the window changes accordingly. Figure 3. Use this pop-up menu to choose the type of processes to display.
3.	Click a button at the bottom of the window to view other information: CPU (Figure 2) displays CPU activity. System Memory (Figure 4) displays RAM usage. Figure 4, 5, 6 & 7. The bottom half of the Activity Monitor window can show System Memory, Disk Activity, Disk Usage, and Network information. Disk Activity (Figure 5) displays disk access activity. Disk Usage (Figure 6) displays free and utilized disk space. Use the pop-up menu to choose other available disks. Network (Figure 7) displays network activity.

Tip

• To sort processes in the Activity Monitor window (Figure 2), click the column you want to sort by. You can reverse the sort order by clicking the same column again.

To display other monitor windows

Choose an option from the Window menu or its Show Floating CPU Window submenu (Figure 7):

• Activity Monitor displays the Activity Monitor window (Figure 2).

• CPU Usage displays a graphical representation of current CPU usage (Figure 9).

  Figure 9. This tiny window displays a live, graphical representation of current CPU usage.

  

  
  

• CPU History displays a window with a chart of CPU usage over time (Figure 10).

  Figure 10. This window displays CPU usage over time.

  

  
  

• Show Floating CPU Window submenu commands (Figure 8) display a horizontal or vertical bar with a graphical representation of current CPU usage.

  Figure 8. The Window menu and its Show Floating CPU Monitor submenu.

  

  
  

Or

Choose an option from the View menu's Dock Icon submenu (Figure 11).These commands display graphical representations of usage and activity in the Dock. Figure 12 shows an example of the Dock with a Network Usage display icon.

Figure 11. The Dock Icon submenu offers options for displaying computer activity information in the Dock.

Figure 12. Activity Monitor can display activity graphs, such as Network Activity, as an icon in the Dock.

Tip

• You can use the Update Frequency submenu under the Monitor menu to change how often monitor windows are updated.