MacMonitor

What is MacMonitor?

MacMonitor is a macOS menu bar system monitor for Apple Silicon that displays real-time CPU, GPU, memory, battery, power rails, network, and disk activity. It’s designed to fit into the macOS menu bar: you get a quick health indicator and, with a click, a full dark-mode dashboard with detailed metrics.

Core to its purpose is consolidating performance and power telemetry from multiple underlying data sources into a single, always-current view. The dashboard and menu bar refresh on a schedule, and the desktop widget can run independently using its own sampling.

Key Features

• Menu bar health indicator (🟢/🟡/🔴): Shows a live status dot and updates every 2 seconds, so you can spot changes immediately.
• Full dark-mode dashboard (click-to-open): Presents multiple metric sections—CPU, GPU, memory, battery, network, disk I/O, and power rails—in one place.
• Multi-source metric collection: Builds the dashboard from four sources (Mach kernel for CPU/memory, Apple Silicon performance counters for GPU/temps/power-related values, pmset/ioreg for battery, and cached sampling where applicable).
• Desktop widget with standalone sampling: A widget for macOS Sonoma/Sequoia that refreshes every 5 seconds and continues collecting data even if you quit the menu bar app.
• Top CPU consumers + cache management: Displays the top 8 CPU consumers and includes an “Optimize Purges disk cache” prompt; it can also offer to gracefully quit heavy apps.

How to Use MacMonitor

1. Install using one of the provided options:
   • Homebrew cask: brew tap ryyansafar/macmonitor then brew install --cask macmonitor.
   • One-line installer: curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ryyansafar/MacMonitor/main/install.sh | bash (installs Homebrew if needed, sets up passwordless access for sampling, downloads the DMG, and launches the app).
   • Manual: Download MacMonitor.dmg from GitHub Releases and drag MacMonitor.app into Applications.
2. After installation, MacMonitor appears in your menu bar.
3. Click the menu bar indicator to open the full dashboard and review sections for CPU, GPU, memory, battery/power, network, disk I/O, and processes.
4. Optionally, add the desktop widget (Small or Medium size) to get a compact view with its own independent refresh behavior.

Use Cases

• Spot performance load spikes while working: Use the menu bar health dot and the CPU/GPU sections to quickly check whether your system is under light, moderate, or heavy load.
• Diagnose thermal and power behavior: Review per-cluster CPU power, GPU/CPU/GPU temps, and the “Power rails” tiles to correlate load with thermals and power draw.
• Track memory pressure and swapping: Monitor memory used/free, swap used, compressed memory, and DRAM bandwidth to understand memory constraints during development or media workloads.
• Monitor power and battery health details on battery: Check charge percentage, charging state, charge rate (W), adapter watts, cycle count, health percentage, and battery temperature.
• Observe I/O activity during builds or downloads: Use the network (live download/upload) and disk I/O (live read/write) sections for ongoing throughput visibility.

FAQ

• Does MacMonitor require sudo privileges? The dashboard pulls CPU and memory telemetry from Mach kernel APIs; for the one-line installer, it specifically configures /etc/sudoers.d/macmonitor for passwordless sudo access to mactop (the source used for Apple Silicon perf counters).

• What macOS versions are supported? The desktop widget is described as available for macOS Sonoma/Sequoia, and the one-line installer verifies macOS 13+.

• Which Mac hardware is required? MacMonitor requires Apple Silicon hardware; Linux and Windows package managers are stated as not applicable.

• How often does the menu bar and widget refresh? The menu bar and dashboard refresh every 2 seconds. The desktop widget refreshes every 5 seconds and uses standalone sampling.

• Is there a standalone desktop widget? Yes. The widget runs independently and continues collecting data even if you quit the menu bar app.

Alternatives

• Native Activity Monitor (macOS): Another built-in option for observing CPU, memory, network, and disk activity. It typically uses a different UI workflow (standalone app rather than menu bar + widget).
• Command-line tools for system telemetry (e.g., mactop-style monitoring): Useful if you prefer terminal output or scripting. MacMonitor focuses on a consolidated dashboard in the menu bar and desktop widget.
• Other third-party menu bar monitors: Category-wise alternatives that also provide compact live metrics. These often vary by how many subsystems (CPU/GPU/power/battery) they surface and whether they include a detailed click-through dashboard.