All-mighty Mac system monitor
Mac also has a Task Manager application but with a different name: Activity Monitor. Features of Activity Monitor application are very similar to the Task Manager in Windows. On top of ending any active processes, you can also: Monitor CPU usage to see the percentage of CPU capacity that each application takes up.
Control CPU, memory, and whatnot with iStat Menus app.
By the virtue of being on Windows for many years, most users develop a muscle memory in hitting Ctrl + Alt + Delete when their PC acts up to open the Task Manager and restart a stalling process. It's just part of daily life. But what's the Mac equivalent of Task Manager?
Microsoft To-Do. In a bid to accelerate its ‘Mobile First, Cloud First’ vision, Microsoft purchased the. Creating task - Create a task by simply entering the name of the task and hitting the add task button. Managing task - Update task information from the task details that shows up when a task it selected from the task list. Time-log entry - Add time log entries on task from the task list with the option for closing it if it is completed.
Some say there's no need for the Apple Task Manager, as Macs run better and smoother than their PC counterparts. And while this is largely true, from time to time you absolutely need a way to force quit Mac processes to keep it in good shape.
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So how to get Task Manager on Mac? Easy! There's already an OSX Task Manager pre-installed (or rather the Mac equivalent of Task Manager) — called Activity Monitor, which you can find in Applications ➙ Utilities.
Activity Monitor Is The Apple Task Manager
Below is a guide for long-time Windows users in the process of onboarding to Mac and hence wondering, 'Where is Task Manager?' 'How to get Task Manager on Mac?' 'How to open Task Manager on Mac?' But Mac users who haven't used the MacBook Activity Monitor in a while will find the instructions on how to halt Mac processes useful as well.
What is Activity Monitor?
Activity Monitor is basically the OSX Task Manager, a utility that shows how much memory your Mac processes are using and which apps are currently active (even if they aren't open), letting you force quit stalled ones if you can't close them the usual way.
If you've never used this task manager for Mac before, it can be quite a lot to take in. But don't worry, here's a quick breakdown of all Activity Monitor's features.
CPU: The first tab in Activity Monitor lists all the processes that are currently taking up your Mac's CPU, displays the exact percentages of power they are consuming, and notes how long they have been running.
There's a process you might notice in the CPU tab called 'kernel_task' that could be taking a large share of resources. Don't panic and don't shut it down! The process simply ensures your CPU isn't working too hard by forcing other memory-intensive Mac processes out. As a result, it might seem like one of the heaviest processes on the list. Similarly, 'mds' and 'mdworker' help index files for the Spotlight search, which sometimes spikes their appetite.
Memory: The second tab reflects how much RAM every process is taking up, which could be the most useful indicator of all. RAM is directly responsible for the speed of your Mac, so getting rid of heavy users is the fastest way to speed things up.
Another interesting feature of the Memory tab is the RAM Pressure Gauge at the bottom. If the bar is green then your Mac's RAM isn't being taxed too much. But if it turns red — consider buying additional memory for your machine.
Energy: The middle tab comes handy when you're using your MacBook without plugging it in. Here you can easily find apps and processes that drain your battery and quit them to extend your screen time.
Disk: Even though this tab might not be the most useful one for daily use, it still shows how various processes interact with your hard drive, rewriting data. If you ever happen to install some malware, you might find its processes here as large outliers and quit them just in time.
Network: The last tab in Activity Monitor reflects the amount of data received and sent by every app you have installed. Again, it's generally good for spotting outliers that might send too much data online.
Cache: If you're running macOS earlier than High Sierra, you might see another tab in Activity Monitor called Cache. It basically lists how much data your network devices have cached so far and is only useful for those who know how to clean up those caches (read more on this below).
How to open Task Manager on Mac?
Unfortunately, there are no keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl + Alt + Delete to open your Mac process monitor, but launching Activity Monitor is still quite simple. Pick one of the three ways to do it.
Open Activity Monitor from Spotlight:
- Press ⌘ + Space to open Spotlight
- Start typing Activity Monitor
- Once Activity Monitor comes up highlighted, hit Enter or click on it
Open Activity Monitor from Finder:
- Click on Finder in your Dock
- Navigate to Applications on the sidebar
- Choose Utilities in the Applications window
- Double-click on the Activity Monitor icon
Open Activity Monitor from Dock:
If you've been having recurring troubles, setting up Activity Monitor in your Dock is absolutely worth doing. It's essentially a handy one-click Mac Task Manager shortcut.
But before you can open Activity Monitor from your Dock, you need to use one of the previous two methods first. Then, once Activity Monitor is active:
- Right-click on the Activity Monitor icon in your Dock
- Select Options
- Choose 'Keep in Dock'
'Keep in Dock' should now have a checkmark beside it, which means it will stay in the Dock even if you quit the app — then you can launch it like any other program.
How to force quit an application?
If you're looking for answers regarding the Mac OS Task Manager, chances are it's because some app has stalled on you. There are two ways to go here.
From the Activity Monitor:
- Navigate to either the CPU or the Memory tab and find the slow process
- Click to highlight
- Press the X icon in the top toolbar
- Confirm that you're sure you want to quit the process
The other force-quit option is from the Force Quit Applications window:
- Press ⌘ + Option + Esc
- Highlight the program you want to quit
- Click Force Quit
Check out: Mac startup programs
Are there better Apple Task Manager alternatives?
While Activity Monitor is definitely the Mac equivalent of Task Manager, sometimes you want to monitor your Mac's processes a little more closely and get real time updates on your Mac's performance. iStat Menus will help you do that.
Keep your Mac controlled
iStat Menus is the single Mac monitoring tool you need for a great performance. Get updates on your Mac’s resources in a click.
iStat Menus gives you fast updates on what's using your Mac's resources at just a glance. Working hard right from the menu bar, the app displays graphs for nearly every function of your Mac, so you can instantly find out what's wrong or just notice how your Mac behaves in different conditions.
It's likely that if you need a Mac OS Task Manager it's because your computer is running slowly. But don't just address the symptom, address the cause. Instead of quitting processes, get your Mac to run smoothly overall with CleanMyMac X.
CleanMyMac X is an optimization software that's designed to improve your Mac's performance with just a few clicks. It removes user and system caches, protects against malware, uninstalls unwanted software — all to bring your Mac back up to speed. If there's an app constantly stalling or hanging up, it's probably due to a conflict with some other process — CleanMyMac X will clear it up right away:
- Open the app
- Navigate to System Junk ➙ Scan
- Review Details to see what might be wrong and hit Clean
Knowing how to use your MacBook Task Manager is essential to getting the most out of your Mac and following the tips above is a good start.
Best of all, iStat Menus and CleanMyMac X are both available for a free 7-day trial through Setapp, a platform with over 150 useful apps that turbocharge your Mac's capabilities. Now you surely won't miss the Windows Task Manager at all.
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You probably learned and used the percentage formula many years ago. It’s essentially a way to represent a ratio as a number. So instead of something like “44/100,” you could just say “44 percent.”
Percentages have tons of use in our daily lives. We use it to discuss how close we are to finishing projects, our confidence level in something, or how much of a given goal we’ve achieved so far. In this article, we’ll discuss how to calculate percentages, and surface some really handy percentage calculator apps for Mac we know you’ll love.
How to Use Percentage Calculator
We’d venture to say most of the time you need to reference percentages, it’s to find a percentage of something. We’ll also go out on a limb and say you probably don’t want to mess around with a calculator every time you want to know a percentage.
Let’s be honest: math isn’t always easy. Even the simplest mathematical operations slip by the sharpest minds. Most of us will break out a calculator for even simple math, but how many times have you used the calculator to qualify even the most basic calculations?
Now think about how many times those results were obviously wrong because your calculator had some number in its immediate memory from an older calculation. What if you never caught it?!
That’s why we like Numi. Your brain isn’t a calculator, and Numi bridges the gap between language and numbers with ease. It allows you to find percentages of numbers and do things like add percentages to numbers without a ton of wonky math.
End Task Mac
Its documentation shows you with ease how to find percentage of something without a ton of steps. Here’s the breakdown:
- Percentage value 20% of $10
- Adding percentage 5% on $30
- Subtracting percentage 6% off 40 EUR
- Percentage value of one value relative to another $50 as a % of $100
- Percentage addition of one value relative to another $70 as a % on $20
- Percentage subtraction of one value relative to another $20 as a % off $70
- Value by percent part 5% of what is 6 EUR
- Value by percent addition 5% on what is 6 EUR
- Value by percent subtraction 5% off what is 6 EUR
Let’s walk through a simple exercise. What if your bill came to $33, and you wanted to add five percent onto it because you really wanted to support the person who made whatever you’re buying. Here’s how to use Numi to quickly figure out what five percent of $33 is, and what the total of your bill would be if you added the five percent onto it:
- Open Numi
- The first screen you’ll see is the ‘sample’ screen. Press the ‘plus’ icon on the top right of the screen to open a new calculations window
- Enter the percentages or figures you’d like to figure out. Here we’ll ask what five percent of $33 is, and add it onto our $33 bill.
Here’s the best part: we didn’t even need the first command! Numi is adept at natural language for mathematical purposes, so we could have simply entered “$33 add 5%” and seen the total bill. And let’s be honest: that’s what matters to your bank account, right?!
How to Calculate Percentage of a Whole
Task Percentage Mac App Download
When you want to know how to find percentage for a whole, two things matter: the part, and the whole.
Let’s run through another exercise. A developer is working on a new website, and has coded 4,413 lines. Of those 4,413 lines, 741 have errors that need to be resolved. This developer wants to know how ‘right’ they were on the first pass at coding this site, and thinks it may be fun to know what percentage of their code was buggy as they coded.
Here’s how to find out the old fashioned way:
- Discover the whole. Here we know it’s 4,413
- Discover the part. Here we know it’s 741
- Divide the part by the whole: 741/4,413
- View the result: 0.1679.
We know that can’t be right, so now what? The easiest way to transfer this to a percentage is to slide the decimal point two spots right. Remember a percentage is always a representation of a whole. Regardless of the number, the ‘whole’ is always 100 percent. (We like to remember sliding two spots to the left as the two zeros in ‘100’.) - Slide the decimal point to find the correct percentage: 16.79 percent
So, our developer friend has 16.79 percent buggy code. We’re sure fixing one line will spring several more errors so best of luck, friend!
How to Calculate Percentage Working Backwards
Working backwards has its own formula: X of Y is Z.
Here’s how it all works. Again, an exercise: let’s say you borrowed money from a friend, and they don’t trust you to pay them back in a reasonable time. So they decide to charge you five percent every week you don’t pay them back.
Here’s how to calculate your first month’s interest, and how much it would cost you if you didn’t pay them back within a month:
- ‘Y’ is the total amount borrowed: $300
- ‘X’ is the interest: five percent
- ‘Z’ is Y times X, and the result added to Y
- Divide five by 100: 0.05 - this is the amount per dollar borrowed you owe in interest
- Multiply 0.05 by $300: $15
- Add $15 to $300: $315
Is There a Percentage Formula
You can also calculate percentages in Excel or Google Sheets, but know these are most accurate in showing a percent change between two cells. You can also find the percentage of a number, but it has to be hard-coded into a cell. As an example, let's say we need to find what 30 percent of 584 is. In a cell, we can enter the following:
=30%*584
The cell will show “175.2” which is correct. 175.2 is 30 percent of 584. You can also use this equals-first formula to calculate the percentage of two numbers. Let’s say you needed to know what percentage of 584 the number 175.2 was. You could just enter the following to see the number “0.3” in the cell:
=175.2/584
If you wanted to view it as a percent, simply format the cell to show percent figures.
If you’re going to use Excel, check out our article on setting up and using the Microsoft Office Suite for Mac. It has everything you’ll need to know to get up and running with Excel!
How to Do Percentages to Calculate Discounts
Another common use for percentages is calculating discounts. You’ve likely seen offers for receiving a discount on an item, but no final cost. Here’s how to calculate your discount:
- Know the original price. Let’s say it’s a $90 item
- Discover the discount. We’ll say 20 percent, here
- Find out the final cost as a percentage by subtracting 20 percent from 100 percent: 100 - 20 = 80
- Divide 80 by 100: 80/100 = 0.8
- Multiply the price of your item by 0.8: 90 x 0.8 = 72
$18 off. Not bad!
If you’re shopping often, it’s probably a good idea to track your spending with an app like MoneyWiz. The app links to all of your credit cards and bank accounts to help you track finances without dipping and diving between web pages. It’s a really sharp way to track spending and know whether a promised discount was actually applied. Often your discount code is meant to be applied later, but never actually is. MoneyWiz can help you track those things.
It’s also great for budgeting. If you needed to manage spending in a category, like clothing, MoneyWiz will help you know exactly how much of your annual budget that cool new jacket is.
Conclusion
Percentages aren’t always easy. If we’re being clever, we will note all the long-hand percentages we’ve shown you in this article are one-line commands in Numi. That’s why we really like it; no more fussing with long form math. Just ask Numi, and it’ll tell you the answer!
MoneyWiz and Numi are also free as part of a seven day trial of Setapp, the world’s best suite of productivity apps for the Mac. You’ll also have immediate and unlimited access to nearly 200 other apps across a wide range of uses from email to coding to – well, almost anything!
When your trial is over, Setapp is only $9.99 per month for unlimited access. If you decide to pre-pay for a full year, that price drops ten percent to $8.99 per month. (Okay, really 10.01 percent. Thanks, Numi!)
Families with multiple Macs will love Setapp’s family plan, a $19.99 per month subscription that earns you access to the full Setapp catalog on up to four Macs. Give Setapp a try today! We know you’ll love it.
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