ProcessSpy - Advanced process monitor for Mac
Problem: The built-in Activity Monitor is solid, but once you need deeper insights or faster workflows, it quickly becomes limiting. ProcessSpy is designed to give power users richer data and more control without dropping into Terminal. Comparison: ProcessSpy vs. Activity Monitor: Compared to Activity Monitor, the free version of ProcessSpy includes: Menu bar popover More detailed process information such as Version, Command Line, Start Time, and signing details. More detailed resource metrics: CPU user/system ratio, CPU QoS, Memory Footprint with Peak Footprint, Page-ins and disk read/write including per second metrics Advanced filtering powered by JavaScript. Fast multi-property and regex search. Hierarchy view with aggregated metrics (CPU, Resident Memory, Threads). Mini CPU graph for each process. Timeline view for each process Point-and-click process discovery. Pause/Resume and signal handling directly from the context menu. Reveal processes and their open files in Finder. Export visible processes to JSON. (Additional capabilities are available in the paid tier—see the homepage for full details) Pricing: Freemium. Download the fully functional free version here: https://process-spy.app and use it without limitations. Premium features can be unlocked with a one-time purchase ($34.99 lifetime updates, unlimited devices). What’s New: Menu bar popover with rich process insights: Supports JavaScript filters. Includes finished process recall. Timeline view for quick inspection. Additional metadata like signing organization and bundle ID. Live CPU, GPU, Disk, and Memory indicators directly in the menu bar. Expanded process metrics: CPU Time and user/system ratio. CPU QoS (thread QoS classes) Memory footprint (including peak) Page-ins and disk read/write activity including per-second metrics. Timeline view showing process lifetime relative to system uptime. System performance indicators now available in the status bar for quick at-a-glance monitoring. UI and localization updates: Native-feeling light and dark mode switch. Simplified Chinese localization (big thanks to a kind member of the community) General UI refinements and performance improvements. Localization note: If you’d like to help translate ProcessSpy into your language, feel free to DM me. Native speakers familiar with technical terminology are especially welcome. I’ll gladly offer a lifetime license to contributors who complete a full translation. Happy monitoring! — Robert
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just downloaded the free version! The JavaScript filtering is what makes this more than a prettier Activity Monitor. Being able to write an actual predicate instead of fighting a search box is exactly what I want when I'm hunting a runaway helper process, and it's the kind of thing I'd otherwise drop into Terminal for. Which is also why the feature I'd most want is alerts built on top of it: let a JS filter fire a notification. Something like "ping me when any process holds over 80% CPU for 30 seconds" or "tell me when something matching this regex spawns" would turn ProcessSpy from a thing I open once I already suspect a problem into a watchdog that catches the problem for me. You've already built the engine, this is just pointing it at notifications. Second ask: per-process network. It's the one Activity Monitor tab you haven't beaten yet, and "which process is quietly eating my bandwidth" is honestly half the reason I ever open a monitor in the first place. Big plus that it's fully local with no telemetry, which is the only sane design for a tool that can see this deep into your system. Solid release, Robert. The depth here is genuinely impressive for a 4MB app.
Thanks a lot — really appreciate the thoughtful feedback and kind words. The alert idea is interesting, and I can definitely see why that would be useful. My only concern is that I’d want to design it carefully so it stays lightweight and doesn’t require evaluating every filter all the time. I’d like to keep that space open-ended and see what’s feasible. Per-process network is a very fair ask — many users have requested it. The surface area there is pretty significant, especially if I’d want to do it properly with a network extension (i would like to avoid parsing nettop output like many tools do), and for now I also wouldn’t want to overlap too much with tools like Little Snitch, which already solve that space really well. Anyway I'll keep this open as well.
Can I use this to find which apps are using swap memory?
Not directly yet, but it does show per-process page-ins and per-second rates, which can help investigate swap-heavy behavior and memory pressure on a per-process basis. Happy to consider more direct swap-focused reporting if people would find it useful.
The timeline view looks particularly interesting. How are users typically using it in practice? Is it debugging short-lived processes, tracking resource spikes, or something else?
The timeline is most useful when comparing multiple processes — for example, to see that something was spawned recently or to quickly identify the order Chrome helper processes appeared without digging into each process’s details.
Make that 5157 users
❤️
One of the best purchases I've made in recent history and receives constant updates and improvements. Keep up the great work!
What made you pick javascript for the filters?
I realize this is out of scope since the app is built around process monitoring, but honestly, just looking at those screenshots and that nice menu bar UI makes me wish it also handled network traffic. Great work. I’ll definitely give it a shot.
Thank you! You’re definitely not the first asking about network traffic. Although I didn’t want to step into that territory initially, I got so many requests that I’ll need to make this a priority.
The UI looks surprisingly native, which is rare for system utilities. Curious about the memory and CPU overhead of ProcessSpy itself.
When I was developing in on M1 Pro I was aiming under 10% of CPU core while in background. Now on M5 it's around 5%. Regarding memory that varies based on number of running processes and how the users interacts with the app.
Most important question: Does resume from pause actually work in this app? Number one beef with Activity Monitor. Button does nothing in activity monitor, but I can resume from terminal with the PID.
Yes it works.
Could you make it so that it sends notifications when specific apps are using a lot of memory? Its a possibly niche ask, just I find myself accidentally leaving something open apps eating like 1-2 gb of ram in the background. So maybe if it could send a notification after a specific length of time?
I think it can make sense, but probably not as a simple “X GB = bad” rule. Memory usage is more contextual — whether the app is active, whether the usage is sustained, and whether the system is actually under pressure all matter. I'll think about it. Thanks for suggestion. Btw you can create a filter as simple as "process.residentMemory > [bytes]" to quickly check for apps using more memory than the amount specified.
Does it show scripts like sketchybar?
No, menu bar customizability is not the main purpose of ProcessSpy.
It supports a tree view that displays the full process tree with complete memory information ?
It shows aggregate values for resident memory, cpu and threads if that's what you mean. Also when you select multiple processes in the table it will show these sums.
Awesome app and awesome job!! This is a no brainer people. This app works great!! Thanks 🙏
Thank you so much!
Hello, I don't understand what the premium license brings?