Process Monitor For Mac

You can observe your Mac's activity with the help of the built-in Activity Monitor app, but if it comes with two many features and you feel that its interface is too crowded, you might give a simpler tool a try.

Process Monitor is a minimalist macOS utility created from the ground up to help keep a close eye on what processes are spawned on your Mac.

Moreover, the Process Monitor app displays all the processes started after its launch in a simple to follow list, with the PID of each process above the path of the binary which spawned it.

Process Monitor allows you to view advanced information regarding the processes in the list (i.e. arguments, codesigning details, bundle identifier,  sha256 hash) by clicking on the tiny arrow button beneath its path.

The text lines for the process paths displayed within Process Monitor do not use word wrap, so you won’t be able to view the entire path while using it to keep a close eye on what processes start on your Mac unless you resize the app’s window.

Nonetheless, Process Monitor does provide you with a "Copy" button at the top of the window to help you copy the list of processes it detects for viewing using tools such as text editors or word processors.

During my tests, Process Monitor did its job perfectly, but it did need quite a few resources, asking for up to 30% of a CPU's core after a few tens of minutes of continuous monitoring, almost on par with Apple's Activity Monitor app.

However, it does have a tiny memory footprint, as it never needed more than 60 MB of RAM, not even after having it running in the background for a few hours.

Overall, it is important to notice that because most users have a quad-core CPU in their Macs nowadays, Process Monitor will not even put a dent in your computer's resource reserves.

All things considered, if you want a simpler alternative to macOS' Activity Monitor, you should give Process Monitor a spin as it provides you with the essential information you need to keep an eye out for any processes spawned by an app or script running in the background.