Mac OS is slightly different from other operating system like Windows and Linux. It has different feature and comes with extra layer of security so that's why everyone prefer to use MacBook Pro to work on it. But it's doesn't mean that MacOS doesn't have any pain point to the users. Sometime MacBook started to overheat and causes to system failure. MacBook Pro 2018 and 2019 & 2020 version most causes issue was overheating. Did you realize that you can check CPU temp on Mac with macbook temperature monitor apps.
Monitoring temperature on Mac is easiest way to keep eye on Mac health and extend CPU usages to stop or kill unused process. On regular basis you need to check mac temperature to lagging off your device. If you are a gamer or high end vide editor these process takes extra memory from your system and cause to overheat in that case, you can cool down your mac by checking macbook temperature monitor.
Mac OS default App activity monitor also help to keep and eye on your Mac process but it unable to help in check CPU temp on mac. Activity monitor only list all current activities running on the system and you can also force quit to the task. But you know that built in activity monitor is not good enough to monitor temperature on mac.
SolarWinds CPU Load Monitor. Best for monitoring and graphing the load on multiple Cisco routers. I lost the ability to use iStat Pro 1 to monitor the temperatures of my macs when Apple removed the dashboard, and I became interested in writing a replacement. Those interested in a very full-featured replacement will likely be satisfied by iStat Menus 2,3 and its add-on for sensor readings 4. I am doing this as a learning exercise and welcome all feedback. 1 https://istat-pro.en.
How to Check CPU Temperature on Mac
There are few steps which can help you to check CPU temperature on mac and even you can also use best mac temperature monitor apps for it lets start the process.
What is The Ideal CPU Temperature on Mac?
So, this depends on model to model, but we can assume that generally our room temperature in between 21 to 24 degree Celsius and your Mac good enough 10 degree Celsius more on room temperature. Like if your Mac temperature in between 30 to 35 that's ok you no need to extra take care of it.
But your Macbook temperature monitor software count it to more then 35-degree Celsius then you need to fix it. Because high CPU temp on mac can cause to leg your mac, slow down its performance and even sometime crash your OS too.
So Why You need to monitor CPU temp on mac
There is multiple reason for why you need temperature monitoring software for mac. You can benchmark your newly Mac machine or you can want to find out what your CPU fan working. Sometimes we just want to install high end game which is not supported by our used version of Mac. In that case Mac CPU start heating and temperature goes high. But you can easily check mac temperature by using following best mac temperature monitoring software.
List of Best Mac Temperature Monitor Apps
Checkout this amazing macbook CPU temperature monitor list which can help to diagnose actual problem in your mac.
1. Fanny Widget for Mac
Developer: Fanny
Price: Free
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.6/5.0
Version: 2.3.0
Compatibility: Mac OS 10.11 or later
Fanny is basically widget for your Mac OS to monitor your Mac Fans. It also shows your Mac CPU temp and GPU temp. You can check CPU temperature on mac with Fanny Widget and notification center. Here are few feature of fanny widget best mac temperature monitor app.
- Get information of current speed, target speed, min/max speed
- Real time fan speed
- Real time CPU temperature
- Real time GPU temperature
2. Temp Monitor from VimiStudios
Developer: Vimistudios
Price: $4.99
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.6/5.0
Version: 1.4.2(53)
Compatibility: OS X 10.11 or later. Intel, 64-bit processor.
Temp monitor is beautiful temperature monitor app for mac which show you all available sensor in your MacBook Pro. Here are few features of this mac temperature monitor app for mac.
- Support for all available sensor on mac
- You can even customize overheat temperature process
- Check and view every fan speed
- Fan control on auto and manual way
- Also support MacBook Pro touch bar
It's all feature makes it your make cooler while overheating. It helps you to display audio and visual notification from MacOS notification center. If you like it and want to give it try just use trial version first or buy it just in $4.99 to make your Mac CPU cooler.
3 iStats Menu 6
Developer: Bjango
Price: $11.79
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.4/5.0
Version: 6.4
Compatibility: OS X 10.11 or later. For lower version use 5.32 version
iStats menu 6 is specially design for CPU usages. It shows highly detailed CPU information with current usages for every single core, history graphs and load average time. Sensor supporting help you to manage temperature of your CPU and GPU, hard drive temperature, GPU frequency, voltage, current, power, and Fan Speed. So, we can say that this is the one of the best MacBook Pro CPU temperature monitor app.
Not even with temperature it also helps you in Weather, uptime, network connection and shows the usages of every single process. Buy this or try for free to iStats Menu 6.
4. TG Pro from Tunabelly
Developer: Tunabelly Software
Price: $20 (Currently Offer $10 only)
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.4/5.0
Version: 2.48
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later.
Extend your MacBook life with this amazing CPU temperature monitor app. TG Pro works with OS X version 10.10 or later. No matter you are using 2016 MacBook Pro model or 2020 newly launched model. It helps to optimize temperature and check CPU fan speed of every Mac machine.
If your Mac getting hot or overheating you can manually boost your fan speed and make it cooler. It also shows the full log detail of every process. The best part is that it shows every CPU core temperature separately so you can easily check and work accordingly.
5. XRG from Gaucho
Developer: Gaucho Software
Price: Open Source/Free
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.1/5.0
Version: 2.8.2
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later. (Also Support 10.5 and 10.6)
XRG is free and open source mac System monitor software. It helps you to monitor CPU and GPU activity. Along with these features it also monitors your MacBook memory usages, battery status, machine temperature, Fan Speed, and Weather information.
6. Menubar Stats 3
Developer: Seense
Price: $4.99
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.1/5.0
Version: 3.4
Compatibility: OS X 10.12 or later.
After very long time Menubar Stats revamped from version 2 to version 3. Menubar 3 is one of best CPU temp check mac app which composed of CPU, Disk, Network, Bluetooth etc. Its keep and eye on your MacBook CPU usages, memory status, disk usages and internet connection. It also takes you of Mac machine battery life. It also helps to manage your Bluetooth, CPU fan speed, GPU, and temperature.
7. MonityApp for OS X
MonityApp is advanced Mac temperature monitoring widget for your Mac. It helps you to manage your current running app statistics, sensor, temperature, Fan Speed, CPU utilization, memory usages, impact of currently running applications and power consumption of your MacBook.
It indicates to Realtime CPU usages, battery status and sensor help to check Fan speed and outside weather report. MonityApp individual dashboard shows you all data in single place.
8. Smart Utility
Developer: Volitans Software
Price: $25
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.1/5.0
Version: 3.2.6
Compatibility: OS X 10.9 to 10.15.
Smart Utility is best mac temperature monitoring software which diagnose your hardware usages. Smart mean Self-monitoring, Analysis, and reporting technology. Here are few features of Smart Utility.
- Display easy to read overall smart status with color.
- Display information in menu bar
- It also supports scan in background.
- It also supports printing driver support.
9. CoconutBattery 3
Developer: Coconut Flavour
Price: $25
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.1/5.0
Version: 3.9
Compatibility: OS X 10.12 to 10.15.
Coconut battery always keep you updated about battery health information of your Mac, iPhone, iPad. Along with mac temperature monitor it also shows age of your device and battery, how often the battery charged and many other information.
10. iStatistica 4
Developer: Imagetasks
Price: $5.99
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Version: 4.6.2
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later.
iStatistica is best mac check temperature app for everyone. It shows you system summary, battery information, network activity and temperature sensor and fans monitor. All these features make it best mac system monitoring widget. Here are few features of iStatistica.
- System Monitoring, Up time, memory used etc.
- Battery information
- Network activity
- Menu bar monitors
- Web access and API
- Plug in support for Fans, Sensor etc.
Frequently Ask Question for Mac Temperature Monitor.
Que 1: What is the normal Mac temperature.
Answer: Normal temperature of your Mac is almost like room temperature. It's not more exceeding to 35 degree Celsius to that's why you need this mac temperature monitor software.
Que 2: How Do I Check CPU temp on MacBook Pro
Answer: MacBook Pro of 2019 and 2018 model have heating issue. If you also used these version MacBook Pro, then you need to extra aware when using your Mac. Generally, every Mac has inbuilt Activity monitor Widget which help to shows you all information about CPU, GPU and fan speed. But for more details and cooling down your MacBook temperature you can use these CPU monitoring apps from above list.
Que 3. How Do I Monitor on Mac Temperature?
Answer: You can temp monitor Mac temperature with default activity monitor app. But you want to check detailed information like CPU temperature, GPU temperature, Sensor monitor, FAN speed etc. then you must use above mentioned MacBook temperature monitor software.
Que. 4 How do I Know if my MacBook Pro is overheating?
Answer: If your MacBook pro start noising after few hours of working or your Fan blow warm air with more noises and sometime your MacBook Pro start lagging in normal work these all symptoms of MacBook Pro overheating.
Que. 5: What is the Ideal Temperature of My Mac CPU while running
Answer: Normal Mac CPU temperature ideally to same as room temperature or maximum 10 degree higher to room temperature is OK.
Conclusion:
If you are using your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air laptop to more then 10 hours per day, then you need to focus on its health also. Without any software we can't check MacBook health, battery information, CPU health etc. For managing all this and improve your MacBook life you need to use any of the Mac CPU temperature monitoring apps.
If you have any question and want to know more about any software, please write in the comment section below we will help you to choose best CPU temperature monitor software.
If you own a Mac, you would know what the sleek and powerful machine can do. Macs are capable of churning out excellent performance layered in an appealing and user-friendly interface.
As Steve Jobs once said about Macs: We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them.
However, there are certain apps, performance patterns, and clogged files that hinder the performance of your Mac. You'll need a good Mac system monitor to track these apps and files and see how your Mac is performing at large.
With a system monitor for Mac, you can view detailed information about your Mac's hardware and software, memory, disk speed, and graphics card performance. These details will help you analyze if your Mac is performing at par with your expectations, or if it is time to clear the clutter, or even make an upgrade.
Quick Jump to…
Is Apple's in-built Activity Monitor good enough?
Mac OS comes with an in-built activity monitor which shows you the processes that are active on your Mac. This can help you manage these processes to see how they affect the activity and performance of your Mac.
The built-in Activity Monitor on the Mac OS is reasonably good as it helps you break down everything by task and even force quit tasks if needed. However, if you are someone who needs to monitor the activity on your Mac continually, then you would realize that the built-in Activity monitor might not be the best tool as you cannot customize it and tweak it as per your needs.
Since there is so much happening inside your Mac which the built-in Activity Monitor does not reveal. Apple is known to minimize distractions with its design. However, this often comes in the way of monitoring its performance.
If you really want to actively monitor your CPU's performance, disk and network activity, memory usage, and receive custom notifications for these parameters, then there's not much that the inbuilt Activity Monitor can do. It even occupies most of the screen. Wouldn't it be convenient if you could monitor your Mac with some icons in the menu bar?
To get to know about the intricacies of your hardware, you will need third-party apps that excel at the job. Here, we will list out some of the best system monitors for your Mac that display your Mac's performance and activity meters with much detail and accessibility.
Our pick to monitor Mac a whole lot advanced: iStat Menus
When it comes to having a robust and customizable app for monitoring the system performance on your macOS, nothing quite beats iStats Menus.
Overview
Once you install iStat Menus on your Mac and set it up, you will notice that the app runs in the background. It is displayed on the menu bar at the top of your screen where it gives you real-time system updates — something which the inbuilt activity monitor on the Mac OS is incapable of doing.
Constant updates flashed on the menu bar, can help you keep an eye on what your Mac is up to and if anything is hindering its performance.
iStat Menus is one of the most popular activity monitoring apps for Mac. The reason for it is that it can report everything. Here are some of the things that iStat Menus can report on:
- Disks
- Memory pressure
- CPU and GPU performance
- Battery and Power
- Weather
- Network
- Sensors
Other features of this app include hotkeys for quick keyboard access, accessibility and localization features, and notifications based on CPU, disk, network, weather, battery and other events.
With iStat Menus, keeping an active eye on your Mac's performance is quite accessible. As mentioned above, all you have to do is click on the respective menu bar icons. Once you do that, you will see a drop-down which details out that component of your Mac.
Most of the drop-downs come with graphs that show a detailed breakdown of data which is updated at regular intervals so that you can know how your Mac's activity has changed over time.
Customization
If you are worried about the menu bar cluttering with several icons, then you can rest your anxiety!
iStat Menus is highly customizable. You can choose what to show and what to hide on the menu bar. You also have the option to hide the icons from your menu bar temporarily.
To review what components are metered on the Menu bar, you can head over to the app and check or uncheck the required field box.
You can also update the colors that show in the app to customize the experience for yourself. You have the option to change the menu bar colors, menu bar borders, and even the shade of the drop-down that highlights the graphs and other details. To make sure that you do not get lost in these customization settings, the interface highlights how playing around with the colors will affect the display of your app.
Under the global settings, you also get to customize the update frequency of the app.
With much customization at hand, iStat Menus is the go-to option for a distraction-free and clean activity-monitoring app, which does the least to confuse you.
Performance
The CPU and GPU tab on iSats Menu lets you keep a track on your processor's current load. Once you click on the menu bar icon, it reveals a drop-down list of the top five processes that are running. These processes are updated with time — you can choose the update frequency along with the displayed processes in the CPU & GPU tab of the app.
You get to view the system performance stats in the form of line graphs, pie charts, or bar graphs, or numerical value — whichever option you choose.
When you hover over these graphs, you get more insights in the form of a popup that highlights system loads for a particular time that may have triggered high CPU usage.
Sounds great so far, doesn't it? This app is quite a haven for developers who want to check if their app is taking a toll on Mac's performance.
With memory comes the capacity to expand on your current tasks — the workload that your Mac is capable of handling without crashing or starting to lag.
iStats Menu's memory performance indicator provides you with ample insight into the memory bit of your Mac. The popup graphs are informative and easy to understand at the same time. They let you track the ‘memory pressure' metric, which is much more useful than simply knowing how much your memory is ‘free'.
The detailed memory stats help you see how much of your RAM is wired, active, compressed, or free. It also lets you see the processes that are consuming most memory.
There's more that this app has to offer! The weather module is a new integration to iStat Menus, and the developers have done the job of integrating it well.
The menu bar icon displays the current weather conditions, and when you click on it, it expands into a whole widget which shows you the ins and outs of your current geography.
You get custom icons for different weather conditions, be it rain, storm, snow, or a bright sunny day!
The well-designed weather module also shows you the daily forecast — what to expect from the day, along with the maximum and minimum temperature based on your preferred units. If you are a weather buff, then you would like to know that you also get to know the dew point, the wind's speed, and direction.
Notifications
This is probably one of the most exciting features of iStat Menus. The notification feature allows you to have notifications every time your Mac hits a specific condition. It can help you stay notified if your Mac heats up, overuses the CPU, or clogs the memory.
You can get custom notifications once your memory usage crosses a certain threshold so that you can begin quitting the apps.
The custom notifications also work with the weather module, so if you are working on your Mac and the weather turns grey and stormy, a notification pops up right away.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
While iStat Menus provides a comprehensive insight into your Mac's functioning, at the first look, it seems like advanced users could make better use of it. However, if you spend some time on the app, you will get familiar with its buttons and icons, and the settings that govern its feature.
Also, we wished that the icon side of things was a but more aesthetic — syncing well with the design-rich layers of the macOS. However, that's not much to be worried about and can surely be fixed with future updates.
Availability and pricing
The single license for iStat Menus can be bought at $14.15; the upgrade price happens to be at $11.79. This also includes 6 months of weather data. However, if you want to try it out, you can always download the trial version.
iStat Menus is also available at Setapp. Setapp provides access to hundreds of apps per month. It has a free 7-day trial, and then you have to subscribe it at $9.99 per month.
Compatibility: OS X 10.9 to 10.15.
Smart Utility is best mac temperature monitoring software which diagnose your hardware usages. Smart mean Self-monitoring, Analysis, and reporting technology. Here are few features of Smart Utility.
- Display easy to read overall smart status with color.
- Display information in menu bar
- It also supports scan in background.
- It also supports printing driver support.
9. CoconutBattery 3
Developer: Coconut Flavour
Price: $25
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.1/5.0
Version: 3.9
Compatibility: OS X 10.12 to 10.15.
Coconut battery always keep you updated about battery health information of your Mac, iPhone, iPad. Along with mac temperature monitor it also shows age of your device and battery, how often the battery charged and many other information.
10. iStatistica 4
Developer: Imagetasks
Price: $5.99
Demo Version: Available to Try
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Version: 4.6.2
Compatibility: OS X 10.10 or later.
iStatistica is best mac check temperature app for everyone. It shows you system summary, battery information, network activity and temperature sensor and fans monitor. All these features make it best mac system monitoring widget. Here are few features of iStatistica.
- System Monitoring, Up time, memory used etc.
- Battery information
- Network activity
- Menu bar monitors
- Web access and API
- Plug in support for Fans, Sensor etc.
Frequently Ask Question for Mac Temperature Monitor.
Que 1: What is the normal Mac temperature.
Answer: Normal temperature of your Mac is almost like room temperature. It's not more exceeding to 35 degree Celsius to that's why you need this mac temperature monitor software.
Que 2: How Do I Check CPU temp on MacBook Pro
Answer: MacBook Pro of 2019 and 2018 model have heating issue. If you also used these version MacBook Pro, then you need to extra aware when using your Mac. Generally, every Mac has inbuilt Activity monitor Widget which help to shows you all information about CPU, GPU and fan speed. But for more details and cooling down your MacBook temperature you can use these CPU monitoring apps from above list.
Que 3. How Do I Monitor on Mac Temperature?
Answer: You can temp monitor Mac temperature with default activity monitor app. But you want to check detailed information like CPU temperature, GPU temperature, Sensor monitor, FAN speed etc. then you must use above mentioned MacBook temperature monitor software.
Que. 4 How do I Know if my MacBook Pro is overheating?
Answer: If your MacBook pro start noising after few hours of working or your Fan blow warm air with more noises and sometime your MacBook Pro start lagging in normal work these all symptoms of MacBook Pro overheating.
Que. 5: What is the Ideal Temperature of My Mac CPU while running
Answer: Normal Mac CPU temperature ideally to same as room temperature or maximum 10 degree higher to room temperature is OK.
Conclusion:
If you are using your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air laptop to more then 10 hours per day, then you need to focus on its health also. Without any software we can't check MacBook health, battery information, CPU health etc. For managing all this and improve your MacBook life you need to use any of the Mac CPU temperature monitoring apps.
If you have any question and want to know more about any software, please write in the comment section below we will help you to choose best CPU temperature monitor software.
If you own a Mac, you would know what the sleek and powerful machine can do. Macs are capable of churning out excellent performance layered in an appealing and user-friendly interface.
As Steve Jobs once said about Macs: We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them.
However, there are certain apps, performance patterns, and clogged files that hinder the performance of your Mac. You'll need a good Mac system monitor to track these apps and files and see how your Mac is performing at large.
With a system monitor for Mac, you can view detailed information about your Mac's hardware and software, memory, disk speed, and graphics card performance. These details will help you analyze if your Mac is performing at par with your expectations, or if it is time to clear the clutter, or even make an upgrade.
Quick Jump to…
Is Apple's in-built Activity Monitor good enough?
Mac OS comes with an in-built activity monitor which shows you the processes that are active on your Mac. This can help you manage these processes to see how they affect the activity and performance of your Mac.
The built-in Activity Monitor on the Mac OS is reasonably good as it helps you break down everything by task and even force quit tasks if needed. However, if you are someone who needs to monitor the activity on your Mac continually, then you would realize that the built-in Activity monitor might not be the best tool as you cannot customize it and tweak it as per your needs.
Since there is so much happening inside your Mac which the built-in Activity Monitor does not reveal. Apple is known to minimize distractions with its design. However, this often comes in the way of monitoring its performance.
If you really want to actively monitor your CPU's performance, disk and network activity, memory usage, and receive custom notifications for these parameters, then there's not much that the inbuilt Activity Monitor can do. It even occupies most of the screen. Wouldn't it be convenient if you could monitor your Mac with some icons in the menu bar?
To get to know about the intricacies of your hardware, you will need third-party apps that excel at the job. Here, we will list out some of the best system monitors for your Mac that display your Mac's performance and activity meters with much detail and accessibility.
Our pick to monitor Mac a whole lot advanced: iStat Menus
When it comes to having a robust and customizable app for monitoring the system performance on your macOS, nothing quite beats iStats Menus.
Overview
Once you install iStat Menus on your Mac and set it up, you will notice that the app runs in the background. It is displayed on the menu bar at the top of your screen where it gives you real-time system updates — something which the inbuilt activity monitor on the Mac OS is incapable of doing.
Constant updates flashed on the menu bar, can help you keep an eye on what your Mac is up to and if anything is hindering its performance.
iStat Menus is one of the most popular activity monitoring apps for Mac. The reason for it is that it can report everything. Here are some of the things that iStat Menus can report on:
- Disks
- Memory pressure
- CPU and GPU performance
- Battery and Power
- Weather
- Network
- Sensors
Other features of this app include hotkeys for quick keyboard access, accessibility and localization features, and notifications based on CPU, disk, network, weather, battery and other events.
With iStat Menus, keeping an active eye on your Mac's performance is quite accessible. As mentioned above, all you have to do is click on the respective menu bar icons. Once you do that, you will see a drop-down which details out that component of your Mac.
Most of the drop-downs come with graphs that show a detailed breakdown of data which is updated at regular intervals so that you can know how your Mac's activity has changed over time.
Customization
If you are worried about the menu bar cluttering with several icons, then you can rest your anxiety!
iStat Menus is highly customizable. You can choose what to show and what to hide on the menu bar. You also have the option to hide the icons from your menu bar temporarily.
To review what components are metered on the Menu bar, you can head over to the app and check or uncheck the required field box.
You can also update the colors that show in the app to customize the experience for yourself. You have the option to change the menu bar colors, menu bar borders, and even the shade of the drop-down that highlights the graphs and other details. To make sure that you do not get lost in these customization settings, the interface highlights how playing around with the colors will affect the display of your app.
Under the global settings, you also get to customize the update frequency of the app.
With much customization at hand, iStat Menus is the go-to option for a distraction-free and clean activity-monitoring app, which does the least to confuse you.
Performance
The CPU and GPU tab on iSats Menu lets you keep a track on your processor's current load. Once you click on the menu bar icon, it reveals a drop-down list of the top five processes that are running. These processes are updated with time — you can choose the update frequency along with the displayed processes in the CPU & GPU tab of the app.
You get to view the system performance stats in the form of line graphs, pie charts, or bar graphs, or numerical value — whichever option you choose.
When you hover over these graphs, you get more insights in the form of a popup that highlights system loads for a particular time that may have triggered high CPU usage.
Sounds great so far, doesn't it? This app is quite a haven for developers who want to check if their app is taking a toll on Mac's performance.
With memory comes the capacity to expand on your current tasks — the workload that your Mac is capable of handling without crashing or starting to lag.
iStats Menu's memory performance indicator provides you with ample insight into the memory bit of your Mac. The popup graphs are informative and easy to understand at the same time. They let you track the ‘memory pressure' metric, which is much more useful than simply knowing how much your memory is ‘free'.
The detailed memory stats help you see how much of your RAM is wired, active, compressed, or free. It also lets you see the processes that are consuming most memory.
There's more that this app has to offer! The weather module is a new integration to iStat Menus, and the developers have done the job of integrating it well.
The menu bar icon displays the current weather conditions, and when you click on it, it expands into a whole widget which shows you the ins and outs of your current geography.
You get custom icons for different weather conditions, be it rain, storm, snow, or a bright sunny day!
The well-designed weather module also shows you the daily forecast — what to expect from the day, along with the maximum and minimum temperature based on your preferred units. If you are a weather buff, then you would like to know that you also get to know the dew point, the wind's speed, and direction.
Notifications
This is probably one of the most exciting features of iStat Menus. The notification feature allows you to have notifications every time your Mac hits a specific condition. It can help you stay notified if your Mac heats up, overuses the CPU, or clogs the memory.
You can get custom notifications once your memory usage crosses a certain threshold so that you can begin quitting the apps.
The custom notifications also work with the weather module, so if you are working on your Mac and the weather turns grey and stormy, a notification pops up right away.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
While iStat Menus provides a comprehensive insight into your Mac's functioning, at the first look, it seems like advanced users could make better use of it. However, if you spend some time on the app, you will get familiar with its buttons and icons, and the settings that govern its feature.
Also, we wished that the icon side of things was a but more aesthetic — syncing well with the design-rich layers of the macOS. However, that's not much to be worried about and can surely be fixed with future updates.
Availability and pricing
The single license for iStat Menus can be bought at $14.15; the upgrade price happens to be at $11.79. This also includes 6 months of weather data. However, if you want to try it out, you can always download the trial version.
iStat Menus is also available at Setapp. Setapp provides access to hundreds of apps per month. It has a free 7-day trial, and then you have to subscribe it at $9.99 per month.
Mac Os X Temperature Monitor
Also great: MenuBar Stats
MenuBar stats is another great app that can help you monitor the performance of your Mac in a clean, sleek and straightforward interface.
Mac Temperature Monitor Free
MenuBar Stats, with its latest release MenuBar Stats 3.5, has completely reinvented the app to make it more compatible with the latest version 11 (macOS Big Sur.)
It has been ‘completely re-written from the ground' and comes with modules such as CPU, disk, network, Bluetooth, fan, and more.
Each of these modules can be accessed front he menu bar and/or the notification center of your Mac OS.
Menubar Stats comes with a host of features that will make monitoring fun, visually appealing, and accessible on your Mac OS.
We particularly like the separate window mode feature as it lets you look at each of the modules individually in a separate window. With separate windows on the same screen, you get access to detailed information about individual components in a clear and concise manner.
On the other hand, the combined window mode on Menubar Stats allows you to see all the information in a single window. There is no pre-set limit to the number of modules that you can add. You can drag and drop the modules to expand the window; if there is no space on your screen, the window will activate the scroll view mode.
Menubar Stats is also known to have great support, so if you have any queries around the app, you can contact the support team and can expect a response in no time!
Menubar Stats comes with a free trial and can be purchased on the App Store for $4.99.
Other contenders
While the above-mentioned apps are quite popular and highly rated, there are other apps that can help you with monitoring your Mac's performance with much ease.
Free open source monitoring app: XRG for Mac
Talking about open sources, XRG for Mac is a functional system monitor tool that you could try if you do want to monitor your Mac's performance for free.
Yes, it is free to use and comes with almost all the features that a performance monitoring app should have. This app lets you monitor your CPU and GPU activity, memory usage, machine temperature, battery status, network activity, disk I/O, stock market data, and current weather.
There are also a handful of settings that you can customize to personalize your experience with this app, change units and modify the way data and graphs are displayed.
However, the way the numbers are displayed on it can get cluttered and cannot be compared to the visual aesthetics of iStat Menus and Menubar Stats 3, and it could take a while for you to figure things out with this app.
Nonetheless, it is a must-have if you are looking for a free tool to monitor your Mac's performance and don't mind spending some time figuring out the interface.
Clean and lightweight performance monitoring tool: Monity
Monity is another app that you can download on the App Store to track the performance of your Mac.
Monity is excellent for those who want a system monitoring app to work as a widget. It rests in the Today View section of your Mac OS and oversees various components of your hardware. Monity does not have menu bars — they say that you can view your network and system usage ‘without messing around with huge and uncomfortable symbols in the menu bar'.
Monity can be used for memory management, monitoring network activity, battery and disk usage, app usage statistics, sensors, temperatures, and fan speed.
It provides you with detailed insights into each of these components. Besides, the app is regularly updated to sync well with the visual changes that the new Mac updates bring.
Monity delivers data to you in an effortless way. For an app that is lightweight and cheap, it works exceedingly well, delivering you with stats and data at your disposal.
Monity comes in fifteen languages and can be purchased from the app store for $4.99.
macOS system monitoring widget: iStatistica
iStatistica is another monitoring app which includes notification center widget and a status bar menu — a mix of what you would find in iStat Menus and Monity.
With iStatistica, it is quite simple to keep track of your CPU's performance — all you have to do is slide out your Mac's Notification Center and you will get insights into the CPU, memory, battery, network activity, and disk usage. However, you will have to download an additional plugin to gain access to fans, sensors, and disk I/O monitoring.
The app is available in six languages — English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, and Italian.
If you want continuous access to iStatistica in your menu bar, you can click settings and select ‘Open iStatistica at Login' ooer, if you only want it to be in your Notification Centre, you can switch off the autorun feature.
iStatistica runs on macOS 10.12 or higher, so if you have trouble using this app, make sure that your macOS is updated to the latest macOS Catalina 10.15.
iStatistica comes with a 7-day free trial. Post that, you can purchase a license for $7.99.
Battery health diagnostic: coconutBattery
coconutBattery has been around since 2005. With the years of development that has been put into it, it does a fine job of displaying the health of your battery on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
It shows you the live performance of your battery, the age of the device and the battery, how often the battery is charged, the current health of your battery, and much more.
You also get the option to save the current health information of your device's battery so you can see the changes in the health over time and know precisely when it is time to replace the battery or make an upgrade.
The app also syncs through iOS, which means that you do not have to connect your phone through a USB every time you want to check the health of your iPhone or iPad's battery.
coconutBattery, however, is strictly a battery monitoring app, so you cannot view other parameters of your Mac on it, such as CPU, disk, and memory usage.
The pro version of the app — coconutBattery Plus — comes with additional features such as WiFi support, iOS Advance Viewer, custom printing templates, notifications, and more. It can be purchased for around $12, depending on your region.
However, you get to try the Plus-upgrade features for 14 consecutive starts of coconutBattery.
Storage monitoring tool: SMART Utility
The newer Macs come with faster SSDs that have high data transfer speeds. To keep track of the health of your drive and to diagnose the problems, it is essential to have an app which takes care of it all. SMART Utility for Mac is one such app which is designed to do just that.
It is compatible with HDDs and SSDs that monitor, analyze, and report on the condition of your Mac's drive.
The app displays crucial information about your drives, such as the model, power-on hours, capacity, bad sector counts, temperature, and error counts and types. It can also display information in the menu bar and supports scanning in the background — a great feature since you do not have to keep the app in foreground every time.
SMART Utility is a lightweight app and comes with a free one-month trial with four launches. A personal license can be purchased at $25. The price for a family license if $40. If you own a business, then you can get a business license for $100. Educational sites have to pay $65, while a consultant license comes at $350.
Make your pick
With a plethora of options to choose from, you can pick just the right apps to get to know more about your Mac's performance under the hood. iStat Menus takes care of most of these parameters, but if you want to get more on the artistic side of things, you can probably go for Monity. For battery diagnostics, nothing quite beats coconutBattery. The best part? Well, you can also sync it with your iPad and iPhone.
We hope that this list provided you with ample options to get to know your Mac better. A fine-tuned Mac opens up doors to more productivity, and we have designed this list and our preferences by keeping that in mind.
Before you go
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