I've used Stats for years and loved it -- for CPU, GPU, memory, and network upload/download speeds.
It's fantastic for catching when a bunch of processes haven't been killed and are stuck at 100%. For figuring out if my code is actually running on the GPU or not. For seeing what my network transfer rates are, when a download or transfer gets stuck, and which process is suddenly downloading hundreds of megabytes without telling me?
It gives me the security I have a top-level overview of what my computer's up to. Can't imagine my menubar without it.
> It's fantastic for catching when a bunch of processes haven't been killed and are stuck at 100%.
Exactly! I've been using iStat Menus for years and I find it invaluable. I've been able to identify system-wide problems a few times already just by glancing at the graphs and going "huh, that should not be happening right now". And it's not just stuck processes, but also misbehaving processes.
Yeah, I've always been a fan of having something like this going. I have found bugs in my software just from having the continuous graph somewhere. "Why am I using 100% of the CPU for no reason right now? Oh, after 10 minutes without a request it enters an infinite loop here..."
Back in the old days the fans going to 100% was a good bug finder. But computers can be so quiet now, you have to use your eyes ;)
This looks like a clone of iStat Menus which I had installed for years and years till one day I realized I basically never look at it and the icons were just taking up space in my menu bar. I finally un-installed it.
The activity monitor in my dock set to show CPU is sufficient for my needs.
the one I use most often is about://peformance in Firefox
I used to open up Activity Monitor, but every single time my laptop fans kick on, it was the browser. with the browser performance monitor, i can see exactly which tab is being naughty. So now, I skip Activity Monitor and go straight to the source. Usually, a cmd-R on the offending tab brings it back under control. I assume some JS dev has not tested their code by having it running in a tab for an amount of time other than how long it takes to test their changes.
TIL you can show useful stats with 'Activity Monitor.app' right in the dock by right clicking the icon and selecting from the 'Dock Icon' menu item. Thanks!
I'm using an old version of iStat Menus, works fine. I did try Stat but the text in the menu bar is too thin for my eyes, and the developer wasn't receptive to my PR that addressed the issue. Which is fine. But makes the app not for me.
I was finally persuaded to subscribe to Setapp. I had already paid for licenses to most of the software on Setapp, but as I have more and more of them roll into a “free” upgrade, I definitely think it’s worthwhile.
I did the same. I used to have iStat Menus running all the time, until i took a good look at how many resources it actually consumed showing me things i never looked at.
These days i keep Little Snitch's network monitor around, which i actually do look at sometimes, though mostly to get a glance at where my traffic is going.
Cool. I used to pay for iStat Menus, but one day I got a new laptop and couldn't figure out how to download the old version I had bought a license for.
IMO it's essential to see cpu / mem / network consumption at all times and, on top of that, the top 5 apps consuming each one of them. It should be a default feature of computing devices by now, but it's so far from that which only benefits bad actors (resource hogs, bad software). I shouldn't have to launch activity monitor every time I want such basic info.
I like to know that the programs I’m developing utilize resources as I expect or intent them to.
I might be bad at my job but it’s not uncommon for me to design something and discover it’s sucking back resources to some crazy degree. I don’t want to discover that in flame charts way after the fact. I’d rather see it in real time and diagnose the issue early on in the process.
Basic insight into what your device is doing, and which app is doing what.
Lets you build intuition about what is normal vs abnormal. And it's also essential for letting you perceive which apps are bad citizens (and good citizens). Try one of these tools out for a month and you catch all sorts of random things.
Funnily enough, the computer's fan used to perform part of this role. But that has increasingly gone away as laptops become increasingly silent.
Once I randomly opened Activity Monitor on my M1 Macbook only to find that vim was using 100% of a CPU core, and the timer said it had been in this state for days! It wasn't even in the foreground of any terminal tab. Just in a spinloop in the background doing who knows what. And it might have stayed like this for a year until I'm forced to reset the computer for an update.
Another example that you might find more compelling is when your computer's network jumps to 5MB/s. It should always be explainable.
Aww yeah, I’ve been rocking menu meters for almost a decade now. I can’t believe people get by without a bandwidth meter at least, so helpful for so many reasons
- "The German word "Verschlimmbesserung" is a compound noun that combines "verschlimmern" (to make worse) and "verbessern" (to improve). It refers to a situation where an attempt to improve something unintentionally makes it worse. This term is often used humorously or critically to describe well-intentioned actions or changes that backfire and lead to negative outcomes instead of the desired improvements"
I've tried Stats over the years as the project has evolved and I keep coming back to iStat Menus. Stats feels very inspired by iStats Menus's design as well. The one thing I appreciate about Stats though is support more SMC sensor values.
I brew installed but it didn't come up in my menubar. Just restarted my Mac and now I see it. I'm too lazy to make a PR to update the docs though right now.
Edit: I just see the battery widget not any of the other ones. This is a confusing onboarding experience.
Edit2: ah, they were all hidden because of Macs crap UX on menubar space. No indication there are more menu item. What a poor design decision Mac.
Thank you for sharing this. Presumably the item spacing with too large (by default) and as such, many of the icons would not display. This fixed it! Appreciate the suggestion
I would be very careful with using Bartender now. It was a great app, but recently bought by a shady company known for buying apps to milk them for money and user data. I recommend Ice, as linked by Khaine, which is open source, free, and works like a charme.
I've been using iPulse (https://ipulseapp.com/) for about twenty years now. It gets consistent compliments and questions from shoulder-surfers because it looks great, and it doesn't take much screen real estate. No affiliation, strong recommendation.
Readit News
It's fantastic for catching when a bunch of processes haven't been killed and are stuck at 100%. For figuring out if my code is actually running on the GPU or not. For seeing what my network transfer rates are, when a download or transfer gets stuck, and which process is suddenly downloading hundreds of megabytes without telling me?
It gives me the security I have a top-level overview of what my computer's up to. Can't imagine my menubar without it.
Exactly! I've been using iStat Menus for years and I find it invaluable. I've been able to identify system-wide problems a few times already just by glancing at the graphs and going "huh, that should not be happening right now". And it's not just stuck processes, but also misbehaving processes.
I did blog about this situation over a year ago here: https://blogsystem5.substack.com/p/hard-disk-leds-and-noisy-... :)
Back in the old days the fans going to 100% was a good bug finder. But computers can be so quiet now, you have to use your eyes ;)
The activity monitor in my dock set to show CPU is sufficient for my needs.
I used to open up Activity Monitor, but every single time my laptop fans kick on, it was the browser. with the browser performance monitor, i can see exactly which tab is being naughty. So now, I skip Activity Monitor and go straight to the source. Usually, a cmd-R on the offending tab brings it back under control. I assume some JS dev has not tested their code by having it running in a tab for an amount of time other than how long it takes to test their changes.
`about://performance` doesn't work at least from my FF, but `about:performance` redirects to `about:processes`
These days i keep Little Snitch's network monitor around, which i actually do look at sometimes, though mostly to get a glance at where my traffic is going.
It may have been just one of the display modules, as I didn’t use the default set, but I never felt like tracking it down, so I uninstalled it.
Every now and then, I try reinstalling it, but it still crashes the system. Not a big deal. Just eye candy.
It made more sense when I used a dirt cheap computer and squeezed every Hz of it.
My first computer (a VIC-20) had 3KB of RAM. There was so little memory, that I had to write most of my software in 6502 Machine Language.
Another #TIL for Apple hidden features
IMO it's essential to see cpu / mem / network consumption at all times and, on top of that, the top 5 apps consuming each one of them. It should be a default feature of computing devices by now, but it's so far from that which only benefits bad actors (resource hogs, bad software). I shouldn't have to launch activity monitor every time I want such basic info.
I'll try this out.
Why?
I might be bad at my job but it’s not uncommon for me to design something and discover it’s sucking back resources to some crazy degree. I don’t want to discover that in flame charts way after the fact. I’d rather see it in real time and diagnose the issue early on in the process.
Lets you build intuition about what is normal vs abnormal. And it's also essential for letting you perceive which apps are bad citizens (and good citizens). Try one of these tools out for a month and you catch all sorts of random things.
Funnily enough, the computer's fan used to perform part of this role. But that has increasingly gone away as laptops become increasingly silent.
Once I randomly opened Activity Monitor on my M1 Macbook only to find that vim was using 100% of a CPU core, and the timer said it had been in this state for days! It wasn't even in the foreground of any terminal tab. Just in a spinloop in the background doing who knows what. And it might have stayed like this for a year until I'm forced to reset the computer for an update.
Another example that you might find more compelling is when your computer's network jumps to 5MB/s. It should always be explainable.
https://member.ipmu.jp/yuji.tachikawa/MenuMetersElCapitan/
[1] https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/
- "The German word "Verschlimmbesserung" is a compound noun that combines "verschlimmern" (to make worse) and "verbessern" (to improve). It refers to a situation where an attempt to improve something unintentionally makes it worse. This term is often used humorously or critically to describe well-intentioned actions or changes that backfire and lead to negative outcomes instead of the desired improvements"
I've tried Stats over the years as the project has evolved and I keep coming back to iStat Menus. Stats feels very inspired by iStats Menus's design as well. The one thing I appreciate about Stats though is support more SMC sensor values.
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Edit: I just see the battery widget not any of the other ones. This is a confusing onboarding experience.
Edit2: ah, they were all hidden because of Macs crap UX on menubar space. No indication there are more menu item. What a poor design decision Mac.
Back in the day I paid for https://www.macbartender.com/ to get these features.
[1] https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice