Processes grouped by app
Helper processes are counted under the application that launched them, providing one app-level view of resource use instead of separate rows for every helper.
Vitals
Freemium
Vitals is a macOS activity monitor that groups helper processes under their parent apps, tracks CPU, memory, disk, network, GPU, and battery use, and keeps per-app history.
What is Vitals?
Vitals is a macOS activity monitor and menu bar utility that groups helper processes under the apps that launched them. This gives users an app-level view of CPU, memory, energy, disk, and network usage instead of requiring them to interpret a long list of individual processes.
The app keeps up to 30 days of per-app usage history and can alert users when an app keeps the CPU busy, continues growing in memory, or heavily uses disk or network resources. It is intended for everyday monitoring and complements Activity Monitor rather than replacing its process-sampling and spindump tools.
What can Vitals do?
System and app resource views
Overview tabs cover CPU, memory, disk, network, GPU, and battery activity, with per-app figures for identifying which applications are using resources.
Historical usage and alerts
Vitals keeps up to 30 days of history for each app and can flag sustained CPU use, growing memory consumption, or heavy disk and network activity.
Menu bar monitoring
The menu bar can show individual readouts as values, graphs, or both, with a dropdown that provides access to the wider set of metrics.
Developer project monitoring
Processes can be grouped by project folder, with listening ports and idle development servers called out. Users can quit or force-quit a process or an entire project after confirmation.
Additional Mac controls and sensors
The app includes CPU and GPU temperatures, fan speed, per-app volume controls, sound output information, Bluetooth device battery levels, and configurable overview tabs.
Use Cases
“Find the app behind high memory use”
When the Mac feels constrained, users can view memory by app with helper processes included rather than manually adding several related process rows.
“Investigate recurring slowdowns”
The 30-day history helps users look back at CPU, memory, disk, or network activity and identify patterns that a live-only view may miss.
“Keep track of local development services”
Developers can inspect projects, listening ports, and idle servers to see what is still running and use the project controls to stop unnecessary processes.
“Monitor a Mac from the menu bar”
Users who want quick status checks can place selected values or graphs in the menu bar and open the dropdown for more detail without starting with a process list.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Vitals monitor?
Vitals monitors CPU, memory, disk, network, GPU, and battery activity, and also provides views for temperatures, fan speed, sound, per-app volume, and Bluetooth device battery levels.
How is Vitals different from Activity Monitor?
Vitals groups helper processes by app, keeps up to 30 days of per-app history, and provides alerts and menu bar monitoring. Activity Monitor remains the better fit for examining individual processes, sampling a process, or taking a spindump.
Can Vitals help with local development projects?
Yes. Its Projects view groups processes by project folder, shows listening ports, identifies idle development servers, and offers quit or force-quit controls with confirmation.
What operating systems and Macs are supported?
Vitals requires macOS 15 or later and has native support for both Apple silicon and Intel Macs.
Is Vitals intended for teams?
The available product information presents Vitals as a utility for individual Mac users. It does not document team administration, shared monitoring, or collaboration features.
Quick Facts
- Category
- Mac system monitoring
- Platform
- macOS 15 or later
- Processor support
- Apple silicon and Intel Macs
- Primary workflow
- App-level resource monitoring from the menu bar
- History
- Up to 30 days per app
- Source domain
- vitalsmac.com
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