Guides/Task Manager for Mac

Task Manager for Mac: the built-in one, and the best apps

MerdoAI

Maker of Orcylo

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Quick answer

The Mac's Task Manager is Activity Monitor: press ⌘Space, type Activity Monitor and press Return. For a frozen app, press ⌥⌘Esc (Option-Command-Escape), the Mac's Ctrl+Alt+Delete, then pick the app and click Force Quit. If you miss Task Manager's one row per app, Orcylo and Vitals both add each app's helper processes back under it and keep 30 days of history. TK-mac copies the Windows layout most closely, and btop and htop are free in Terminal.

Windows Task Manager folds an app's helper processes under the app, so Chrome is one row you can expand. Activity Monitor gives every process its own row: several hundred on a working Mac, dozens of them called Google Chrome Helper. It also has no startup tab, no alerts and only 12 hours of energy history on a laptop. The apps below fill those gaps. They are ranked for someone coming from Task Manager, and each one is labelled with the job it does best.

#AppBest forPriceRuns in
1OrcyloBest overallOne row per app, with 30 days of history and alerts€5 launch price for the first 20 licences, then €7.50 for the next 30, then €9.99, once, for one MacThe menu bar and a window
2VitalsThe same one-row-per-app view, with fan and per-app volume control$9 during its launch, then $29, onceA window and the menu bar
3TK-macThe Windows Task Manager look, on a Mac$7.99 once (launch offer, then $13.99); 7-day free trialA window and the menu bar
4ProcessSpyProcess Explorer-style detail for developersFree version; $34.99 once for all features, or through SetappA window and the menu bar
5iStatistica ProA Task Manager you can buy on the Mac App Store$9.99 on the Mac App Store ($5.99 for the version without Pro)A window, widgets and the menu bar
6btopTask Manager in TerminalFree, open source (Apache 2.0); brew install btopTerminal
7htopThe same process viewer on every Mac and Linux machineFree, open source (GPL 2.0); brew install htopTerminal
  1. 01

    Orcylo

    by us

    Best for: One row per app, with 30 days of history and alerts

    Price
    €5 launch price for the first 20 licences, then €7.50 for the next 30, then €9.99, once, for one Mac
    Runs in
    The menu bar and a window

    We make Orcylo. It sorts the roughly 700 processes on a working Mac under the 25 or so apps that own them, so Chrome and its helpers are one row with one figure each for CPU, memory, GPU, power, disk and network. It keeps 30 days of per-minute history, sends a notification when an app burns CPU for minutes or keeps growing in memory, and quits or force quits an app only after asking. Developers also get their dev servers by project and their Claude Code and Codex limits in the menu bar.

    Good

    • One row per app, with its helper processes counted in
    • 30 days of per-minute history for every metric and the busiest apps
    • Alerts for runaway CPU, growing memory, heavy disk writes and a filling disk
    • Dev servers grouped by project folder, with their ports
    • Claude Code and Codex limits in the menu bar
    • One payment, every future update

    Not so good

    • New: version 1.0
    • Needs macOS 15 Sequoia or later
    • No fan control and no per-app volume
    • No process sampling or spindumps; keep Activity Monitor for those
    Coming soon · €5Buy · €5Orcylo vs Activity Monitor
  2. 02

    Vitals

    by Fore Studio

    Best for: The same one-row-per-app view, with fan and per-app volume control

    Price
    $9 during its launch, then $29, once
    Runs in
    A window and the menu bar

    Vitals does the job Orcylo does and was there first: every helper is added to the app that launched it, so each app gets one figure for memory, CPU, energy, disk and network, with 30 days of history and a notification when an app misbehaves. It goes further on hardware, with a fan speed you can set and a volume slider for each app. An agents tab for Claude Code and Codex is on its public roadmap rather than in the app today.

    Good

    • One figure per app, helpers included
    • 30 days of history and alerts for misbehaving apps
    • Set fan speeds and control volume per app
    • Runs on macOS 15 Sequoia and later

    Not so good

    • The price rises in steps as licences sell
    • No Claude Code or Codex limits yet (on its roadmap)
    Vitals websiteOrcylo vs Vitals
  3. 03

    TK-mac

    by TK-mac

    Best for: The Windows Task Manager look, on a Mac

    Price
    $7.99 once (launch offer, then $13.99); 7-day free trial
    Runs in
    A window and the menu bar

    Built for people who switched from Windows and miss the layout. It separates your apps from background tasks, folds helpers such as Chrome's into one figure per app, shows live CPU, memory and disk dashboards, and tracks upload and download speed per process. The menu bar lists the top ten consumers with pause, restart and force quit, and a Force Quit All button covers a frozen Mac. It can also profile one app for up to 60 seconds and read system and security logs.

    Good

    • The layout Windows users remember
    • Network speed per process
    • Log viewer with search and CSV export
    • Low price, with a 7-day trial and a two-Mac licence

    Not so good

    • Metric history is limited to a 60-second profile of one app
    • Alerts are not described on its site
    • Needs macOS 14.6 or later
    TK-mac website
  4. 04

    ProcessSpy

    by Robert (independent developer)

    Best for: Process Explorer-style detail for developers

    Price
    Free version; $34.99 once for all features, or through Setapp
    Runs in
    A window and the menu bar

    The closest Mac match to Windows Process Explorer. It shows each process's full command line, path and version, so ten processes called java stop looking identical, and it remembers processes after they exit. Its tree view groups child processes and related XPC services, with rolled-up totals for CPU, memory and threads. The paid licence adds CPU and memory history with CSV export, environment variables and signature details.

    Good

    • Full command line, path and version for every process
    • Remembers finished processes
    • Regex and JavaScript filters
    • Free version; the paid licence covers unlimited Macs

    Not so good

    • A tree of processes rather than a list of apps
    • History and deep inspection are paid
    • No temperatures or fans described on its site
    ProcessSpy website
  5. 05

    iStatistica Pro

    by ImageTasks

    Best for: A Task Manager you can buy on the Mac App Store

    Price
    $9.99 on the Mac App Store ($5.99 for the version without Pro)
    Runs in
    A window, widgets and the menu bar

    A system monitor sold through the Mac App Store, with menu bar monitors, widgets and notifications for CPU, memory, disk, network, GPU and sensors. The Pro edition adds an Applications tab that lists running apps and processes with CPU history and force quit, plus a web dashboard and a REST API. Temperatures, fan speeds and the Quit and Force Quit actions need a separate Sensors plug-in from the maker's site.

    Good

    • Bought and updated through the Mac App Store
    • Notifications that can run a Terminal command
    • Web dashboard and REST API

    Not so good

    • Quit, Force Quit and temperatures need a separate plug-in
    • No per-app grouping described
    iStatistica Pro website
  6. 06

    btop

    by aristocratos (open source)

    Best for: Task Manager in Terminal

    Price
    Free, open source (Apache 2.0); brew install btop
    Runs in
    Terminal

    A full-screen Terminal monitor with CPU, memory, disk and network graphs, a process list you can filter, sort and view as a tree, and the ability to send any signal to the selected process. Version 1.4.7 added Apple silicon GPU figures. If you already live in a terminal, it is the most pleasant way to see what is running.

    Good

    • Free, fast and keyboard-driven
    • Kill or signal a process from the list
    • Mouse support and themes

    Not so good

    • Processes, not apps
    • No history beyond the session and no alerts
    btop website
  7. 07

    htop

    by htop-dev (open source)

    Best for: The same process viewer on every Mac and Linux machine

    Price
    Free, open source (GPL 2.0); brew install htop
    Runs in
    Terminal

    The long-running interactive process viewer, still maintained (version 3.5.3, August 2026). It is plainer than btop, but it shows full command lines, sorts and filters interactively and kills or renices a process without typing its PID. It is packaged for nearly every Unix-like system, which is the reason to learn it.

    Good

    • Free and available almost everywhere
    • Tree view, search, kill and renice

    Not so good

    • No GPU, sensors, history or alerts
    • Processes, not apps
    htop website

If you came from Windows, most of what Task Manager did is still on your Mac. It is spread across one app, one keyboard shortcut and one pane of System Settings, and this guide covers each one before the apps that bring the Windows layout back.

How to open Task Manager on a Mac

Activity Monitor is the Mac’s Task Manager under another name: a live list of everything running, with CPU, memory, energy, disk and network figures and a button to quit any of it. It comes with every Mac, in Applications > Utilities (Apple’s Activity Monitor User Guide).

  1. Press ⌘Space. Spotlight opens in the middle of the screen.
  2. Type “Activity”. Activity Monitor shows up after a few letters.
  3. Press Return. The Activity Monitor window opens.
  4. Keep it in the Dock. Control-click its Dock icon and choose Options > Keep in Dock, so it is one click away next time.

Other ways to open it on macOS 26

macOS 26 Tahoe replaced Launchpad with an apps view inside Spotlight. Click the Apps icon in the Dock, or open Spotlight and press ⌘1, then type Activity Monitor and press Return (Apple: View and open apps on Mac). In Finder, Shift-Command-U opens the Utilities folder, where Activity Monitor sits next to Terminal and Disk Utility. From Terminal:

open -a "Activity Monitor"

Ctrl+Alt+Delete on a Mac: force quit a frozen app

Option-Command-Escape (⌥⌘Esc) is the Mac’s Ctrl+Alt+Delete. It skips the menu Windows shows and goes straight to a Force Quit window that lists your open apps (Apple: How to force an app to quit).

  1. Press ⌥⌘Esc. Hold Option and Command, then press Escape.
  2. Select the frozen app. Only apps appear here, not background processes.
  3. Click Force Quit. The app closes at once, and any unsaved changes in it are lost.

The same window opens from the Apple menu > Force Quit. You can also Control-click an app’s icon in the Dock and choose Force Quit, which is quicker when you can already see the icon.

End a background process in Activity Monitor

Background processes never show up in the Force Quit window, so use Activity Monitor for those. Select the process, click the Stop button at the top left of the window, then choose Quit or Force Quit (Apple: Quit an app or process). Quit waits until the process can stop safely; Force Quit stops it immediately. A process that is not responding appears in red with “(Not Responding)” after its name. Processes owned by another user or by macOS may ask for an administrator password.

End a task from Terminal

Terminal’s kill is the keyboard route, and it needs no administrator rights for your own processes:

pgrep -il chrome      # list matching processes and their PIDs
kill 4821             # ask PID 4821 to quit (SIGTERM)
kill -9 4821          # force it (SIGKILL) only if the first one is ignored
killall Safari        # quit every process with exactly this name

kill -9 gives the process no chance to save anything, so try a plain kill first. If the thing you want to stop is a dev server holding a port, the guide to finding the process on a port shows how to get its PID first.

Where Task Manager’s tabs are on a Mac

Windows puts everything in one window. On a Mac the same jobs are split between Activity Monitor and System Settings:

Task Manager (Windows 11) Where it is on a Mac (macOS 26)
Processes Activity Monitor, CPU and Memory tabs (one row per process)
Performance Activity Monitor: Window > CPU History and GPU History, and the Memory Pressure graph
App history Activity Monitor: the Energy tab’s 12 hr Power column on laptops, and View > Applications in Last 12 Hours
Startup apps System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions
Users Activity Monitor: View > My Processes or Other User Processes
Details Double-click a process for its Memory, Statistics, and Open Files and Ports
Services App Background Activity in Login Items & Extensions, or launchctl list in Terminal
End task The Stop button in Activity Monitor, or ⌥⌘Esc

Startup items moved in recent macOS versions. On macOS 26 the path is Apple menu > System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions (Apple: Login Items & Extensions settings). Open at Login holds the apps that start with you. App Background Activity controls the helpers that run while their app is closed.

Why Activity Monitor shows so many more rows

Helper processes are the extra processes an app starts to do parts of its work. For example, a browser runs separate ones for tabs, extensions and graphics, and many desktop apps do the same. Activity Monitor gives each one its own row and its own figure, so the memory a browser really uses is spread across dozens of lines you have to add up yourself. View > All Processes, Hierarchically shows which process started which, but it still does not total them.

That gap is the main reason people coming from Windows look for another app. The Activity Monitor glossary explains helper processes, memory pressure and the other columns, and the guide on checking CPU and memory use shows how to read them.

Tools that do one job well

These were checked but not ranked, because they are not Task Manager replacements:

  • TG Pro ($10 once, on sale from $20) is the pick for manual and automatic fan control, which Orcylo does not offer; Orcylo only reads fan speed (TG Pro).
  • ProcXray (free download, $15 lifetime licence, 14-day trial of its premium features) takes one stuck process apart: its open ports, files, loaded libraries and code signature (ProcXray).

When Activity Monitor is enough

For a frozen app, ⌥⌘Esc is all you need. For “what is using the CPU right now”, sort Activity Monitor’s CPU tab by % CPU. It can also sample a process or take a spindump, which none of the apps in this guide replace. It is free, already installed and updates every 5 seconds by default (every second if you choose View > Update Frequency > Very often).

It falls short where Task Manager spoiled you: one row per app, a startup list in the same window, alerts, and anything older than the last 12 hours. If your Mac is slow and you are not sure why, start with why your Mac is slow; for a feature-by-feature look, see Orcylo vs Activity Monitor.

How we checked

We make Orcylo, so weigh its place with that in mind. Every price and feature in this guide comes from the maker’s own site, Mac App Store listing or GitHub repository, and was fact-checked against those pages on October 1, 2026. The macOS steps follow Apple’s own guides for macOS 26 Tahoe. Where a maker does not say whether its app does something, the entry does not claim it either way.

Orcylo is first because it answers the question people open Task Manager with (which app is doing this?) with one row per app and 30 days of history. Its regular price is €9.99 once, for one Mac. Vitals does the same job and adds fan and per-app volume control, so pick it if you need those. TK-mac is third because it is the closest to Task Manager’s look. Prices change, so check the maker’s site before you buy, and see every Activity Monitor alternative we compared for the wider field.

Questions people ask

What is Task Manager called on a Mac?

Activity Monitor. It is in Applications > Utilities, or press ⌘Space and type its name. It lists every process with its CPU, memory, energy, disk and network use, and can quit or force quit any of them.

What is Ctrl+Alt+Delete on a Mac?

Option-Command-Escape (⌥⌘Esc). It opens the Force Quit window, which lists your open apps: select the frozen one and click Force Quit. You can also choose Force Quit from the Apple menu.

Where are startup apps on a Mac?

On macOS 26 Tahoe, open System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions. Apps under Open at Login start when you log in, and App Background Activity lists apps allowed to run tasks while they are closed.

Is there a free Task Manager for Mac?

Yes. Activity Monitor is free and built into every Mac. btop and htop are free and open source in Terminal, and ProcessSpy and ProcXray have free versions with paid upgrades.

Why does Activity Monitor show so many more processes than Task Manager?

Both count the same kind of processes. Task Manager groups an app's helpers under the app; Activity Monitor gives each helper its own row, so one browser can fill dozens of rows. Apps such as Orcylo and Vitals add them back up under the app.

Sources

  1. 1.Apple: Activity Monitor User Guide · support.apple.com
  2. 2.Apple: Quit an app or process in Activity Monitor · support.apple.com
  3. 3.Apple: How to force an app to quit on Mac · support.apple.com
  4. 4.Apple: View and open apps on Mac (macOS 26) · support.apple.com
  5. 5.Apple: Change Login Items & Extensions settings · support.apple.com
  6. 6.Apple: Mac keyboard shortcuts · support.apple.com
  7. 7.Vitals · vitalsmac.com
  8. 8.TK-mac · tk-mac.com
  9. 9.ProcessSpy · process-spy.app
  10. 10.iStatistica Pro on the Mac App Store · apps.apple.com
  11. 11.btop on GitHub · github.com
  12. 12.htop on GitHub · github.com
  13. 13.TG Pro · tunabellysoftware.com
  14. 14.ProcXray · procxray.com

About the author

MerdoAI

Maker of Orcylo

Orcylo is a native menu bar system monitor for macOS 15 Sequoia and later. It groups about 700 processes under the 25 or so apps that own them, keeps 30 days of history and shows your Claude Code and Codex limits. The guides cover the same ground: what is slowing a Mac down, what Activity Monitor's figures mean, and how much of an AI coding limit is left.

How these guides are written and checked: our editorial policy. To report a mistake, contact support@orcylo.app.

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