If your Mac, which is supposed to be lightning-fast, is suddenly starting to act up, 7 times out of 10, the problem is high CPU usage. CPU stands for Central Processing Unit: it’s the brain of your Mac, and if there is something wrong with it, the impacts will be felt throughout the system.
The first thing you need to do is to determine what the problem is and what’s causing it. Next, to help your Mac and boost its productivity, you need to reduce CPU usage and address the core reasons that have led to the annoying spikes in its activity. Find out how to speed up sluggish Mac by mastering CPU-related solutions, and keep using them whenever the same problem occurs.
Three Signs of Excessive CPU Load
The good news is that when there is an excessive CPU load, your Mac won’t stay silent. It will complain to you in a myriad of ways, so let’s review three main symptoms.
Severe Lags
Lags are the most obvious sign that your Mac is feeling overwhelmed. Here is what you might witness:
- Your Mac is starting to take longer and longer to respond to your commands. Opening an app or clicking on an image or video has turned into a time-consuming process.
- Random apps freeze and refuse to respond at all, no matter how much time you spend waiting for a reaction.
- Typing text and browsing the Internet is becoming maddeningly slow; as an example, you type the letter “k,” and it only becomes visible 20 seconds later.
If any of these issues pop up, chances are, your CPU is trying to do way too many things at once, so its processing times drop.
Loud Fan Noise
This is the noisiest problem that’s impossible to miss. If your fans start roaring more and more insistently, then your Mac is failing in some way. Most often, the explanation is that your CPU is generating more heat than usual to take care of all the processes it’s tasked with, and the system is desperately trying to avoid overheating.
If you are really performing heavy tasks at the moment, then it’s fine. However, if there is nothing important happening yet the fans keep grumbling, then something in the background is consuming an abnormal part of Mac’s resources.
Rapid Battery Drain
Another typical high CPU issue is rapid battery drain. Here is how it tends to be displayed:
- Your battery percentage drops at an alarming rate even when you aren’t doing anything resource-consuming.
- You do nothing at all, but when you open your Mac, you see that it’s lost a part of its charge.
- Your Mac keeps grumbling and getting warm, and it doesn’t last as long as it used to, even if you’re doing the same old activities.
Mac’s CPU is extremely power-hungry, and if it keeps working at full capacity, your battery will suffer.
Troubleshooting and Fixing Unexplained High CPU Usage
It’s time to see how to pinpoint and solve the problems triggering your Mac’s high CPU usage.
Troubleshooting: Use Built-in Activity Monitor
Before getting your Mac high CPU usage fix, you need to identify the offender that keeps being a nuisance. The best way to do it is by opening your Activity Monitor, a tool that every Mac comes with. Follow these steps:
- Go to Applications and choose Utilities. You’ll see Activity Monitor there; you can also summon it by using Command + Space and typing what tool you’re looking for.
- The CPU tab is located at the very top of Activity Monitor: click on it, and you’ll see a list of processes like apps and system tasks.
- Check the CPU percentage: it will be displayed next to each active process, showing you how much energy they are consuming.
The secret to finding the problem lies in checking the highest activity percentages. If one of the apps is using 80%, then it’s clearly an issue. However, if you’re using too many apps at once, they might also absorb energy: Activity Monitor will show all the answers.
Fixing High CPU Usage on Mac
Once you’ve identified the high CPU problem roots, what should you do? Take a look at these practical guidelines:
- Close problematic apps. Click on the app that’s taking too much energy right in your Activity Monitor. Press X and choose Quit. You can try to update this app and then check if it’s going to keep acting up.
- Check your browser. Web browsers can trigger high CPU usage. Look at how many tabs you have open; check if there are any downloads or streaming happening there. A high number of extensions might also be a problem.
- Restart your Mac. This is the simplest method, but it often proves to be useful. Just switch your Mac off, wait for a minute, and get it running again. This can clear temporary bugs and stop background tasks, including the ones that got stuck.
- Use a Mac cleanup tool. This is the fastest way to solve the CPU problem and make sure it never happens again. Get a Mac-specific cleanup tool that will automate everything: it’ll find problematic apps, remove junk, and manage startup items.
These are simple steps, but each of them can help you solve the issue of high CPU usage.
Make Sure Your Mac Performs Flawlessly
Now you know how to identify high CPU usage and what you should do to address it. Is your Mac lagging in the most infuriating way? Do the fans keep wailing and distracting you from your work? Does the battery lose its power in what feels like a single hour?
If the answer to even one of these questions is yes, chances are, you’re witnessing high CPU issues. Use your Activity Monitor, and follow the suggestions we’ve introduced in this guide. Consider applying outside tools to pinpoint the culprit and get rid of it, and welcome the previous level of your Mac’s performance back.
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