Why does macOS have SO MANY processes with nothing installed?

Most of them you are using without realizing it, some of them you know you’re using, a few are probably there for things you might not take advantage of but are commonly used features nonetheless.

1 Like

I agree in principle, but they have tuned those things so that they use near zero resources despite technically running.

The issue is that macOS isn’t built for you if you’re worried about this kind of thing.

Yea, I’ve noticed some of them connecting to the internet without any invocations from me, also. It’s a shame that everything including the kitchen sink has to be running all the time taking up memory space. I guess that’s just how it’s been done.

On the bright side macos compresses the memory space of idle processes, and eventually swaps it out of physical memory.

Because people commonly do use photos. If you know you don’t want stuff that people would ordinarily use and it bothers you so much, you can disable things with launchctl.

1 Like

Well, like I say, it’s not mine. They do use material amounts of resources when you add them together, and the age of the machine is getting up there so there’s more incentive to “clean things up”, to the extent possible.

Indeed, do you know if this will cause lots of unanticipated problems? Apple integrates these tools into the OS, it seems, so tightly that it concerns me to just turn things off as I would, without hesitation, in almost any other Linux build.

I haven’t seen near the level of transparency regarding which services are required and which aren’t in Mac’s OS environment, the way I have for all other flavors of Linux I’ve worked with, and even Windows.

Maybe I just haven’t looked in the right places for that info…

Because Mac Os is not Linux, and isn’t related to linux,
in any way or form.
Comparing apples to pinguins right there…

4 Likes

There’s probably not much out there.

How much memory is your system using completely idle (minus your vpn and antivirus)?

I have a MacBook Air with 4gb of memory. There are some applications that will choke it, but web browsing is fine even with dozens of tabs (with adblocking).

It has 16 GB. What makes it difficult to use is when I do video editing. The browser works as well as it can based on the VPN’s availability.

It uses about 9GB at idle, and cache files at 5.5GB.

@hp185688 9GB at idle sounds a bit much.
Could it be, that Mac Osx preloads certain most used applications,
in memory, for speeding up launch times of those apps?

These services are not consuming appreciable system resources if you aren’t using them.

That’s a certainty, but it loads things that are never used, too. It would be a lot of work to identify them all, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it.

That’s why it’s nice when OS designers have meaningful resources for users to manage their own equipment, rather than leaving things closed or prohibitively not practical to attempt to manage. This kind of documentation exists for things like server OS’s, as a practical matter. Not so much here, though, for reasons I understand and don’t understand.

Well you could start checking out the apps that bootup with the system.
Sometimes there are apps or components that aint particularily nessesary.

I might. I was hoping someone else might already have done some of this for similar reasons, lol.

Communication on every protocol imaginable, telemetry, third party services.

I listed above what the root to all your concerns likely are. Apple uses telemetry, Apple has proprietary services, Apple connects with third party.

So YoU cAn StAy cOnNecTeD!!!

No, you’re really not.

That’s funny, the impression I get from you is intentionally being bull headed and stubborn as if you’re looking for some magic answer. The processes tell you what they are, look it up.

4 Likes

No, it’s not. Because of the whole patent issue thing since Unix Source is still the property of AT&T to this day.

Mac OS X and Linux are POSIX compliant, as is Unix and BSD, but that’s a whole different story.

But they are actually not. Look at the CPU Usage (current) and the CPU time total. Your WindowServer for example has a CPU time (= active time) of almost 6 days (which, if “WindowServer” didn’t tip you off, is the Window Manager that manages literally everything you see), while a lot of those shown processes are less then 10 seconds CPU time (=active time) in that same time span, meaning they are not actually running. That is the same as I have.

Which is pretty much what I said in the first post…

You know, there are others here that don’t seem to struggle so much. I think when you have to resort to callousness in your responses to valid questions, which is part of the purpose of the forum, it’s time to step back and be silent.

If you don’t know the answer, don’t speak, or if you just want to see yourself be heard please go to another thread where that is the intent. If you aren’t clear on the question, ask nicely. If you can’t say things politely, you will not be taken seriously.

I’ve been a server administrator, and this kind of basic respect for others when working through technical questions is par for the course.

The forum is not expressly for the enjoyment of people that know everything about everything. If that were so, there wouldn’t be anyone on it.

Please be respectful when you don’t understand what people are asking, and please don’t waste other people’s time attacking them for asking on this thread. If you don’t know the answer or don’t have the patience to explain things nicely, your contribution will not count for a whole lot.

You implied I was being obtuse to drag out an argument with you. I was informing you this isn’t the case. You have disregarded information in here and others sharing similar experiences on similar operating systems.

I know exactly what you’re asking. I offered an explanation. If you want to know what’s happening I suggest getting a book on operating systems or learning how the BSD Unixes work.

Nice. :+1:

3 Likes

The answer has been given a long time ago. MacOS is running services that apple wants the system to run.

2 Likes