Now, let’s take a closer look at each of the main stat displays.Ĭentral processing unit is a key indicator of a hard-working Mac. Some readouts expand into additional graphs or more detailed tables. For more information about a particular readout, hover over it with with your cursor. You’ll find a series of readouts, with some illustrated by charts and graphs. To expand any menu, just click on its icon. You can view virtually anything, from UV ray intensity to astronomical dusk and dawn times. For instance, weather doesn’t just show you current temperature and moonphase. They’re available in the main menu as well and are frankly way more convenient (and informative) than native macOS versions, so you should look into that. By extra we mean that you’ll have to turn them on manually from the iStat Menus app window, they’re not shown by default like the previous. You’ll also be introduced to a couple of extra stats, like weather and world clock. Getting to know your new Mac indicatorsīy default, iStat Menus embeds five displays in your Mac’s Menubar: CPU, Memory, Solid State Drive, Network, and Sensors. Plus, you’ll be able to customize the appearance of each display according to your needs. Control Mac's activity and performance from menu barĮach menubar display expands into a set of specialized charts and displays, each of which gives more specific information. The app displays information about your CPU, memory, solid state drives, and network connection, and gives you a convenient way to check in on your computer’s sensors. IStat Menus delivers new insights into how your Mac is performing, all built into your menu bar. Every important number in your Mac seems intentionally hidden, so you’ll need an app to bring them into the view and make them stay there. To view your central processor usage, you’ll have to launch Activity monitor, and same goes for network info. How many hours of use is it, three? What if you stream a movie? macOS prefers not to disclose the exact time. (If you'd like more info on iStat menus, including a number of screenshots, Macworld covered it in this recent Mac Gems entry.) As both are free to use, though, there's no cost to trying both and sticking with the one that works best for you.You open your Mac in an airport and it has 23% battery charge. IStat menus is a very useful system monitoring tool, and at the moment, I'm trying to decide exactly which to keep using-I prefer some of the icon display options and appearances in MenuMeters, but I like the additional tools and features in iStat menus. (You can't, however, see any iCal events or to-do's on the calendar for that, I really like MenuCalendarClock for iCal.) The replacement date and time function is a nice addition - when you click the time, you'll get a full month's calendar in the menu that appears, and options to open the Date & Time System Preferences panel or iCal. You'll get similar detail on the other options in iStat menus. MenuMeters, by comparison, shows uptime, a task and thread count, and load averages (and buttons for Activity Monitor and Console). For instance, when I click the CPU icon, I get a breakdown on usage between user, system, nice and idle processes, a live graph of CPU usage over time by core, the top five CPU-using processes, some data on loads and uptimes, and an icon to launch Activity Monitor. When you click on a given menubar icon, you're given more information about that particular category of activity. You can customize the appearance of each menu bar icon, as well as disable those you have no interest in seeing. Buy you can also add icons to watch temperatures, fan speeds and power usage, Bluetooth, and even replace the stock date and time feature. Also as with MenuMeters, you can monitor CPU usage, disk space, memory usage, and network activity. As with MenuMeters, iStat menus lets you monitor various system activities via menu bar icons. Although I've tried other apps over the years, this week's Pick is the first one that has me seriously considering changing my system monitoring utility. For years, I've used Raging Menace's free MenuMeters ( Pick of the Week write-up) to keep an eye on my system.
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