If you spend any time at all poking through Activity Monitor, you know that loads of processes run on any macOS system. But what do they do? Is it safe to force them to quit? We’ve got some answers for you.
RELATED: How to Troubleshoot Your Mac With Activity Monitor
As part of an ongoing series, we’re taking a closer look at the processes spawned by macOS, common third-party apps, and hardware drivers. Here’s what we’ve collected so far.
What Is kernel_task, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What Is hidd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What Are mds and mdworker, and Why Are They Running on My Mac? What Is installd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What Is the Process WindowServer, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What Is blued, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What Is launchd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What Is backupd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What Is dbfseventsd and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What Is opendirectoryd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is coredaudiod, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is powerd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is coreauthd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is configd, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is UserEventAgent, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is nsurlstoraged, and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is parentalcontrold and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is sandboxd and Why Is It Running on My Mac? What is cloudd and Why Is It Running on my Mac? What Are assistant_service and assistantd, and Why Are They Running on my Mac? What is storddownloadd and Why Is It Running on my Mac? What is dasd and Why Is It Running on my Mac? What is AppleSpell and Why is it Running on my Mac?
And be sure to check back regularly. We’ll update this page each time we write about a new process.
