Usage is a cool new system activity monitor for your Mac

Usage For Mac Screenshot
Usage For Mac Screenshot (Image credit: Oleh Stasula)

What you need to know

  • Usage is a new system activity monitor for your Mac.
  • Users can monitor their Mac's battery, processor, memory, storage, and network activity from a menu bar app

Keeping tabs on what your Mac is doing isn't a fun job, but it can be one that's important depending on what you use it for. People who use a lot of CPU horsepower might want to know when they are using all their chips can offer, for example. Others might like to know when their network connection is being saturated. Usage can display both kinds of information — and more.

Usage, a free app available in the App Store now, can monitor a variety of different aspects of your Mac right out of the box with more coming. Those include:

  • Battery charge level
  • Battery health
  • Processor load
  • Memory usage
  • Network activity
  • Disk usage

All of this is done from a simple menu bar app, too

Customization is another facet that Usage has over some similar apps, with 19 bar components and 13 popover widgets included at the time of writing. Again, more are in the works so expect that number to grow in due course. The more options that are added, the better Usage will become. It's already one of the best Mac monitoring apps I've used.

If you're looking for a cool way to keep tabs on your Mac's resources and want to try something a little different, Usage could be a great option. You can download it from the Mac App Store now º it's a free download with an optional in-app purchase to unlock additional features.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.