Activity monitor Page Out question

Is there a way to get Page Outs to report the number of page outs rather than bytes ?
And when did this change, as it used to report in # of pages.... I think in 10.5

Sorry, but that cannot be changed. If you want a better report of that information then open the Terminal and enter: top then press RETURN. Top's information is more complete than what is reported in Activity Monitor. Also see:
About OS X Memory Management and Usage
Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor
Memory Management in Mac OS X
Performance Guidelines- Memory Management in Mac OS X
A detailed look at memory usage in OS X
Understanding top output in the Terminal
The amount of available RAM for applications is the sum of Free RAM and Inactive RAM. This will change as applications are opened and closed or change from active to inactive status. The Swap figure represents an estimate of the total amount of swap space required for VM if used, but does not necessarily indicate the actual size of the existing swap file. If you are really in need of more RAM that would be indicated by how frequently the system uses VM. If you open the Terminal and run the top command at the prompt you will find information reported on Pageins () and Pageouts (). Pageouts () is the important figure. If the value in the parentheses is 0 (zero) then OS X is not making instantaneous use of VM which means you have adequate physical RAM for the system with the applications you have loaded. If the figure in parentheses is running positive and your hard drive is constantly being used (thrashing) then you need more physical RAM.

Similar Messages

Page Ins vs Page Outs question

Hi Guys,
Could someone please explain... I have 4GB ram installed and when I look at Activity Monitor I see I have in the region of 38200 page ins and 0 page outs {when surfing the web as I am now} and a VM of 10.56GB. I just opened iMovie, iDVD, Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Parallels, iTunes, Word, Safari and iPhoto, and it went up to 74452 Page ins but still 0 Page outs and the VM went to 20.02GB with 1.50GB of real Ram still free. What does it all mean?
Cheers
B

It means you have enough RAM. Page outs occur when data on physical memory, RAM, is "paged" to virtual memory on your hard drive. Having zero page outs is a sign that you have sufficient RAM.

Activity Monitor processes - a questionable one

I looked on Activity Monitor on All Processes and saw something I thought was strange. Under the process mdimport there is a User named "nobody" and it is right below the mdimport with my user name. it has 3 threads devoted to it but it doesn't look like it is doing anything. First off what is mdimport and why is there a user named nobody on my comp, is that a standard process on Mac OS 10.4.6? ( I'm paranoid now that this is someone hacking my computer) please respond as soon as you can. thanks.
iBook PowerPC G4 1.07 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.6) 100 GB HD, 768 MB DDR SDRAM, 32 MB VRAM, Superdrive, AirPort Extreme

The mdimport process is used by Spotlight to index files. It runs as the nobody user so that it can't index anything in areas restricted to the system or the accounts you've created on the machine. Mac OS X creates several user accounts for system-level tasks when it is installed, and these crop up from time to time. Your system is not being hacked.
(18539)

Swap used but no page outs

What would cause OS X, Mountain Lion in this case but I believe I've seen this in previous versions as well, to use swap space but not to page out?
See:
Its been a while since I've had to delve into the whys and wherefores of memmory managment and paging systems.
thanks

Thanks for that, it was a good vm refresher.
However after giving the doc a quick read I didn't see any mention of OS X use of swap vs. paging. Unless the term has changed meaning when a process was swapped its entire memory footprint was written out to disk. Now if my memory was all used up and I started a new program I could see the need to swap out an existing program to make room (but even this case, at least as I remember it the paging system would be used)
So my question still is open, what causes OS X to swap rather then page when there is memory available and what does OS X even mean by swapping?
thanks
Message was edited by: Frank Caggiano - looking at the Activity Monitor page on the Apple site isn;t any help. They state:
Swap used:
This is the amount of information copied to the swap file on the Mac's drive.

Could someone please explain what "Run Spindump" & "Run System Diagnostics" does in 'Activity Monitor' ?

Could someone please explain what "Run Spindump" & "Run System Diagnostics" does in 'Activity Monitor' ?

Good question. You don't need to worry about running those. They will run automatically when needed by the system. The information they generate (some) is sent to apple automatically (unless that setting is disabled).
If you want to look at the output of these files, most can be found in the console (Utility/Console). Open the app and look at all the system messages your Mac generates....on the right hand side I would bet you already have a crash log or spindump that was collected without you even knowing it.

RAM and Activity Monitor questions M.B.P. Is sOoOoo slow and I just don't know where to start..RAM and Activity Monitor

   So I am really unsure where to start but I def need a little help getting to where I want to be or feel I should be. I understand that I am pretty much filled when it comes to the RAM on this machine but I need to figure out how to lower it. I back up my machine about once a week which is longer than I would prefer but due to the way Mavericks has been acting I cant deal with the long backup process.... WHY?!?? may be your response to that and I will fill you in. My external Hard Drive is a 1tb Lacie and its about 2 years old. In that time I have dropped, lost, threw and slept ontop of it. Causeing minor damage (each time) to the casing. So now becomes rather hot and I kinda dont want it to burn out. When I first updated to Mavericks the backups were fast and went along mb by mb...now though, the updates drag out for 3-5 hours and update kb by kb. Tried some of the "solutions" posted on here but none seem to work any more than me consistantly purging my system while the backup happens...kinda why I dont have time to do it everyday like I'd like.
     ANYWAY can someone please fill me in on a way, program, application, anything that will help me lower my RAM? Because in the spirit of honesty I just dont have the extra funds to snag some new RAM or another HD. I am almost at the point of saying "F**K IT" and wiping everything off the computer so its as close to empty as can be and manually, one by one redownloading what I want/need. But I dont have the time to accomplish that either. PLEASE lend me your ear and help a brudda out with some information from that exceptional brain of yours.
     Below is a copy of my machines "report" from EtreCHECK and I am including screen shots of what the (Mavericks) Activity Monitor currently looks like in ALL PROCESSES. PLUS it kinda seems that I have WAY TOOO MANY processes going on in the ACTIVITY MONITOR and have NO clue how to lower the amount.    Will truly appreciate any help anyone can toss my way.
    THANK YOU
              TommyTheTuna
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro6,2
          1 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2 cores
          4 GB RAM
Video Information:
          Intel HD Graphics - VRAM: 288 MB
          NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M - VRAM: 256 MB
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0
          AirPlay: Version: 1.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3
System Software:
          OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 0:12:4
Disk Information:
          TOSHIBA MK3255GSXF disk0 : (320.07 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 319.21 GB (194.65 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-898
USB Information:
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
          Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
Kernel Extensions:
Problem System Launch Daemons:
Problem System Launch Agents:
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist
          [not loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
          [not loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist
          [not loaded] com.livescribe.PenCommService.plist
          [not loaded] com.luthresearch.scservice.plist
          [not loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
          [not loaded] com.paceap.eden.licensed.plist
          [not loaded] PACESupport.plist
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
          [not loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist
          [not loaded] com.luthresearch.savvyconnectmenu.plist
          [not loaded] com.wacom.pentablet.plist
User Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist
          [not loaded] com.facebook.videochat.[redacted].plist
          [not loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist
          [not loaded] com.Livestation.plist
          [not loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist
User Login Items:
          iTunesHelper
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          Flash Player
Internet Plug-ins:
          AdobePDFViewer.plugin
          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin
          Default Browser.plugin
          Flash Player.plugin
          FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin
          Google Earth Web Plug-in.plugin
          googletalkbrowserplugin.plugin
          iPhotoPhotocast.plugin
          JavaAppletPlugin.plugin
          npgtpo3dautoplugin.plugin
          o1dbrowserplugin.plugin
          QuickTime Plugin.plugin
          SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin
          WacomNetscape.plugin
User Internet Plug-ins:
          Unity Web Player.plugin
Bad Fonts:
          None
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Mobile backups: OFF
          Auto backup: NO
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 319.21 GB Disk used: 124.57 GB
          Destinations:
                    Tuna's MacBook Pro Hard Drive [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 999.86 GB
                    Total number of backups: 2
                    Oldest backup: 2013-11-07 13:34:08 +0000
                    Last backup: 2013-11-26 05:08:40 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Excellent
                              Backup size 999.86 GB > (Disk size 319.21 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
Top Processes by CPU:
               2%          WindowServer
               1%          EtreCheck
               0%          SystemUIServer
               0%          fontd
               0%          Finder
               0%          Microsoft Word
               0%          aosnotifyd
Top Processes by Memory:
          156 MB             com.apple.WebKit.WebContent
          111 MB             Finder
          106 MB             Microsoft Word
          94 MB              Safari
          82 MB              Preview
          74 MB              WindowServer
          61 MB              CalendarAgent
          57 MB              com.apple.IconServicesAgent
          57 MB              com.apple.internetaccounts
          53 MB              SystemUIServer
Virtual Memory Statistics:
          1.07 GB            Free RAM
          1.92 GB            Active RAM
          237 MB             Inactive RAM
          662 MB             Wired RAM
          223 MB             Page-ins
          0 B                Page-outs

Mavericks is designed to use as much RAM as possible. Free RAM is wasted RAM... it's RAM that's not working for you, not doing anything helpful. Seeing your RAM full is not an indication that there is a problem. Seeing your memory pressure graph spike would be.
As for the performance issues, see my Mac Performance Guide.
Note that you've got a lot of third-party software loaded:
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist
          [not loaded] com.adobe.SwitchBoard.plist
          [not loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist
          [not loaded] com.livescribe.PenCommService.plist
          [not loaded] com.luthresearch.scservice.plist
          [not loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist
          [not loaded] com.paceap.eden.licensed.plist
          [not loaded] PACESupport.plist
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist
          [not loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist
          [not loaded] com.luthresearch.savvyconnectmenu.plist
          [not loaded] com.wacom.pentablet.plist
User Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist
          [not loaded] com.facebook.videochat.[redacted].plist
          [not loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist
          [not loaded] com.Livestation.plist
          [not loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist
You should probably try to weed some of that out, if possible, or at least make sure it's all updated and compatible with Mavericks.

Activity Monitor Question

If there was a book titled "Activity Monitor for Dummies," I'd buy it. My question is in reference to the Network activity mode -- when I'm monitoring network activity, I'm seeing a modest amount of packet activity being transmitted and received by my computer. Is this activity related to tracking operations being done by a third party? In my innocent little world, I would expect to see zero bytes comming out of my 'puter when I'm not using it to communicate with the web. Can someone please explain.

... Is this activity related to tracking operations being done by a third party?
Possible, but very unlikely. Your computer routinely communicates with your router and other computers on your LAN. Even if you didn't have a router at all, your computer would constantly be attempting to find a network connection. Macs are relentless about that.
If you doubt this, simply disconnect your router from the outside world. You will still see some activity. Only if you disable all network connections in System Preferences > Network will you see no communication at all.
In my innocent little world, I would expect to see zero bytes comming out of my 'puter when I'm not using it to communicate with the web. Can someone please explain.
If you are concerned about what processes want to connect to the outside world, you need Little Snitch: http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/
If you are concerned that your computer has been taken over by a "bot" click here: http://www.botnetchecker.com/ Do not download advertised anti-malware junk from there or anywhere else though.

Activity Monitor question please...

A while ago I read about using the Activity Monitor to tell if I don't have enough ram or if a program is using lots of resources...i forget though, what am i looking for?...is it the reads in and writes out numbers?...I did a search and couldn't find anything...
I also remember reading something about 'pages' or excessive pages?...but I can't recall what to look for...
I'm asking because when using Firefox i get a beach ball when i simply click on bookmarks in the menu looking for an address...I never had that happen before...I have the max of 2gb of ram on my 'puter so I'm not sure what's happening...
thanks for advice...
M

You can use Terminal (Applications/Utilities) to determine the amount of page in and page outs if that is what you are referring to, using the command;
top
Note page ins and page outs. If page outs are 5% or less than page ins, that is considered quite minimal. 10% is borderline; extra RAM may be beneficial.
20% or more you would benefit from more RAM.
Press Q when you are finished looking at top in Terminal.
Note that this data is renewed on start up, so have your system running for a several hours or wait till the end of the day, to gather a sufficient amount of data.
From what you have said, having 2GB of RAM I would expect that you have sufficient RAM for your purposes, and using the top command should verify that.
Try cleaning out your browser;
delete all cookies.
Firefox > Preferences > Privacy > Show cookies > Remove all cookies.
Also
~/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles/-----.default/Cache select all of those files and drag them to the trash also.
Empty the trash
See if that speed things up.
Message was edited by: roam

Activity monitor question for experts.

When I open activity monitor it is constantly changing. I have safari open, but it is there and then it isn't and then it is in activity monitor. How do I read this and is that normal?

mike sanders3 wrote:
I entered the thread because it clearly said Activity Monitor for experts and I had an AM problem please tell me where I went wrong I thought we were here to help each other not be picky about threads. If your thread was something different then maybe it should have been more specific I just needed help and there was an opening that seemed to refer to my problem. I don't spend half my life here as you seem to do judging by your posts, let's just be nice to people who need help.
In order to help people, they should understand the purpose of these boards.
Had you read the OP's post, you would see that his Activity Monitor is working and his question was simply why Safari appears and disappears from the AM window.
Your issue is entirely different and that is why I suggested starting a new thread with your particular problem/issue which has nothing to do with Safari in the Activity Monitor.
Perhaps the term "hijacking a thread" seems rash to you, but it is a common expression with no personal attachment to it. It merely means that someone has used another poster's thread to pose a completely different topic.
To best get help on this or any technical board, first search for instances of your particular issue, which may have already been solved, and if you do not find such a topic, start a new thread with the Subject describing your issue.
Once people start responding to other posts in a thread, nobody any longer knows who is answering whom.
It is always preferable to start a new topic if you want a quick solution to a problem, rather than bury it in another person's thread. It's called "Netiquette" and it is not my invention. It's been around as long as the net has been around AFAIK.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

My mac seems to be frozen on an internet page. I cant force quit. I can't control+options+command+esc. I can't access my activity monitor. I can see my mouse moving but when I click on anything, it doesn't seem to engage or recognize it. Fix?

My mac seems to be frozen on an internet page. I can't force quit. I can't control+options+command+esc. I can't access my activity monitor. I CAN see my mouse moving but when I click on anything, it doesn't seem to engage or recognize it. Fix?

Thank you. There is a bigger issue. It is not the web page that is the problem. It is that I can see my mouse moving and can move it along the bottom toolbar and the options will highlight but I can't click on anything. I can see the apple icon to get to force quit but cant click on it.
I used your suggestion and force quit came up but I can't select the option to force quit... not even with my arrows and enter/return key. Any other thoughts?
Thank you.

"Simple" question about Activity Monitor

When Activity Monitor displays percentages, is that percentages relative to what else is running, or is that percentage of the CPU's processing capacity? Something that is using up 30-40% of the CPU's processing capacity is a lot more intense than something that is using 30-40% of the CPU's activity AMONGST the other threads running.
So which is it? Percentage of the CPU's processing CAPABILITY or percentage of what the processor is chewing on right now - regardless of how much more it could chew on.
This will help us decide if our current xserve (1G, 1CPU, G4) is adequate for our needs or we're constantly maxing out the processor and need to look for a faster server. I don't want to replace an older, but still adequate system just because newer is obviously faster.

It's entirely possible for a process to use more than 100% of a CPU.
In the case of a dual-CPU machine you could use up to 200% (100% x 2 CPUs).
In the case of a quad-core machine (2 x dual-core CPUs) you could see up to 400% (100% x 4 cores).
An 8-core server could see up to 800%
You see, the 100% mark is based on each CPU core, not all cores combined. I guess that wasn't clear in my earlier response.

Time machine space questions, not the same as Activity Monitor

Hello
I am new here and kindly ask your thoughts on what I am seeing.
I have a 13" MacBook Pro early 2011 with OS 10.7.5
Earlier this year I tried an upgrade to a new OS and experienced a failure that required me to make a visit to the Apple store.
I believe they reinstalled the OS and if I remember correctly I just did a recovery with the Time Machine backup I had.
While that backup was not very recent, yea OK I get that was stupid, what was odd was that not all my files were backed up.
I lost a significant number of files from April 2013 until the time of the failure in 2014, for reasons I have no clue as to why.
My Time Machine does not have any excluded files as far as I can tell.
So my first question is: Can anyone help me understand what may have happened and how to counter that?
Then yesterday I decided to invest in a new backup external drive.
During the process of setting it up and doing the 1st Time Machine backup on that, I noticed the following:
In Activity Monitor under the "Disk Usage" tab shows the Macintosh HD as using 258 of 319 GB, and then selecting my user name it shows using 578 of 639 GB.
When I did the backup with Time Machine it backed up approximately 250GB.
I thought Time Machine backed up the entire HD.
What is the difference between the Macintosh HD space and the user space in terms of usage and total?
Should I be worried or visiting the Apple store again?

OK, done.
I created a text.txt document containing the words "Version 0". I saved it to the Desktop, closed it and selected "Back Up Now" from the Finder.
Waited for that to complete, opened the test.txt document again, modified it by adding the words "Version 1", saved it, closed it and selected "Back Up Now" again.
Repeated that twice more, so the end result was a Text.txt containing the words "Version 0", "Version 1", "Version 2", and "Version 3".
I expect that I should now have three versions from which to choose to restore, all from different times, plus the latest one still on the Desktop.
Creation and backups now complete, so the next step was restoration:
From the Finder, I used "Enter Time Machine" and verified that I had four different recent times from which to choose. I chose the original text.txt document and elected to "keep both files". It restored the original, which I opened and verified it contained nothing but the text "Version 0".
I repeated this for the subsequent version. I opened that one and confirmed it contained the words "Version 1".
I repeated this for the subsequent version. Now I have three restored text.txt documents, plus the one on the Desktop.
I opened all four text.txt documents and stacked them as shown in the following screenshot:
Conclusion, no surprises that I can determine.
Is this what you had in mind, or was there something I did that was different from what you need?

Activity Monitor: System Memory. Questions

Hi apple community. I have a questions about this picture above.
This is my MBP retina performs in system memory.
What is the wired thing (mark in color red)?
Does this lower my mac's performace?
if it do so, how to prevent things to being wired?
and also the inactive (mark in color blue)
what does it do? and does it effect my mac?
if it looks bad, can u make suggestions for me on what to do to improve my mac performance like brand new?
i have my mac for 7 months now.
ur help will be much appreciated.
Thanks.

Apple support articles which seem to answer your general questions.
Memory - Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used
Memory - Check whether more RAM will improve performance

Hello I am getting some nasty popups on safari. looks like malware. virtually all menus on safari are frozen out. Search with firefox and followed some directions to use the activity monitor to force quit these processes and it was no use.

malware on safari. tried activity monitor > force quit but they just popped back up. Please help.

wow thanks holding down the shift key worked. Is there anything else I should do know?
The problem wasn't in quitting safari but everyone time I opened it, that crap would pop up. Should I be able to use it now without holding down shift?

A question about Activity Monitor!

Hi all
Is there a way to know the MBP temperature (any) by using Activity Monitor? or Terminal?
I use iStat Menus but I need to know for my information.
Thanks

No. The Terminal shell contains no commands to access temperatures directly hence the need for software like iStat.

Activity monitor Page Out question

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