mactop

mactop is a terminal-based monitoring tool "top" designed to display real-time metrics for Apple Silicon chips written by Carsen Klock. It provides a simple and efficient way to monitor CPU and GPU usage, E-Cores and P-Cores, power consumption, and other system metrics directly from your terminal!

Compatibility

Apple Silicon Only (ARM64)
macOS Monterey 12.3+

Features

Apple Silicon Monitor Top written in Go Lang and CGO
Real-time CPU and GPU power wattage usage display.
Detailed native metrics for CPU cores (E and P cores) (Apple's Mach Kernel API)
Memory usage and swap information.
Network usage information
Disk Activity Read/Write
Easy-to-read terminal UI
Two layouts: default and alternative
Customizable UI color (green, red, blue, cyan, magenta, yellow, and white)
Customizable update interval (default is 1000ms)
Processes list (sorted by CPU usage)
Disk Storage (Used, Total, Available)
Party Mode (Randomly cycles through colors)
Optional Prometheus Metrics server (default is disabled)
Support for all Apple Silicon models.

Install via Homebrew

You can install mactop via Homebrew! https://brew.sh

brew install mactop

sudo mactop

Updating via Homebrew

brew update

brew upgrade mactop

Installation

To install mactop, follow these steps:

Ensure you have Go installed on your machine. If not, you can install it by following the instructions here: Go Installation Guide.

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/context-labs/mactop.git
cd mactop

Build the application:
```
go build
```
Run the application:
```
sudo ./mactop
```

Usage

After installation, you can start mactop by simply running:

sudo ./mactop

sudo is required to run mactop

Example with flags

sudo mactop --interval 1000 --color green

mactop Flags

--interval or -i: Set the powermetrics update interval in milliseconds. Default is 1000. (For low-end M chips, you may want to increase this value)
--color or -c: Set the UI color. Default is white. Options are 'green', 'red', 'blue', 'cyan', 'magenta', 'yellow', and 'white'. (-c green)
--prometheus or -p: Set and enable the local Prometheus metrics server on the given port. Default is disabled. (e.g. -p 2112 to enable Prometheus metrics on port 2112)
--version or -v: Print the version of mactop.
--help or -h: Show a help message about these flags and how to run mactop.

mactop Commands

Use the following keys to interact with the application while its running:

q: Quit the application.
r: Refresh the UI data manually.
c: Cycle through the color themes.
p: Party Mode (Randomly cycles through colors)
l: Toggle the main display's layout.
h: Toggle the help menu.

Example Theme (Green) Screenshot (sudo mactop -c green) on Advanced layout (Hit "l" key to toggle)

Confirmed tested working M series chips

M1
M1 Pro
M1 Max
M1 Ultra
M2
M2 Pro
M2 Max
M2 Ultra
M3
M3 Pro
M3 Max
M4
M4 Pro
M4 Max

(If you have a confirmed working M series chip that is not listed, please open an issue, so we may add it here!)

Contributing

Contributions are what make the open-source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

Fork mactop
Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
Open a Pull Request

What does mactop use to get real-time data?

sysctl: For CPU model information
system_profiler: For GPU Core Count
psutil: For memory and swap metrics
powermetrics: For majority of GPU, Network, and Disk metrics
host_processor_info: For CPU metrics (E and P cores) Apple Mach Kernel API in CGO

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE for more information.

Author and Contact

Carsen Klock - @carsenklock

Project Link: https://github.com/context-labs/mactop

Disclaimer

This tool is not officially supported by Apple. It is provided as is, and may not work as expected. Use at your own risk.

Acknowledgements

termui for the terminal UI framework.
gopsutil for system memory monitoring.
asitop for the original inspiration!
htop for the process list and CPU cores inspiration!