Mac Performance Monitor Release Notes

Reorganizes the GPU tab and consolidates charts. Reduces recorder and menu-bar memory use through reusable chart images and bounded caches, and releases unused UI data when closed. Streams history reads and fixes resizing and overlap in process details. Recording and alerts remain intact.

Source

• Fixes memory leaks when repeatedly opening the menu bar dropdown.
• Closed dropdowns are released instead of continuing background updates.

Official release notes: https://github.com/Zesty0wl/mac-performance-monitor/blob/v2.3.1.280/CHANGELOG.md

Mac Performance Monitor 2.3.0 (build 279). See CHANGELOG.md for what's new.

• 2026-10-04

Added

• Temperatures follow your Mac's unit (#134). Every temperature in the app, from the menu bar and Dashboard to Hardware sensors, Explorer, Energy and Ask, now shows in the unit chosen in System Settings > General > Language & Region > Temperature, so Macs set to Fahrenheit see °F. Settings > General > Temperature can override it. History is still recorded in Celsius, so switching is instant, loses nothing, and leaves exports and the AI agents' data unchanged.
• Insights can flag screen capture that is slowing the desktop: WindowServer busy with most of a core for 2 minutes while macOS's screen capture service (replayd) is busy too, even when total CPU and memory pressure look normal. It covers any capture source, such as screen sharing, screen recording or an AI agent watching the screen. The card names the app when it recognizes the capture helper (OpenAI's Computer Use service for now) and otherwise points to the purple screen recording icon in the menu bar. It uses existing readings and does not record the screen or stop processes.

Changed

• Ask About This Mac is rebuilt for people new to Macs (macOS 27). It opens with a one-line verdict and a tile for each part of the Mac (Processor, Memory, Graphics, Neural Engine, Network, Storage, Battery, Heat), each with a plain status such as Calm, Busy or Worth a look. Tap a tile or a starter question, or type your own. The app reads its own history, compares it with what is normal for your Mac, and works out which apps are responsible; Apple's on-device model then explains it in everyday words and suggests one safe next step. Each answer links to the matching charts, opened in Explorer at the right time with the right apps selected, and shows the facts behind it. Nothing leaves your Mac, and the conversation is cleared when Ask closes.
• Hand off to an AI agent. For deeper digging, Ask can copy a ready-made prompt (with your current question and its facts) for Claude Code, Codex or another AI agent, or the one-line command that connects one. The app now ships mpm, a read-only command-line tool and MCP server inside the app (Contents/MacOS/mpm), with documented agent_* SQL views of the history, the same judged summaries Ask uses, and macperfmonitor:// links that open the matching charts in Explorer. The agent sends what it reads to its own provider, so Ask explains that before the first copy. The new AI agents guide covers setup for Claude Code, Codex, Claude Desktop, Cursor and VS Code, the tools and data agents get, and what leaves your Mac.
• A program busy for hours is now flagged. A part of macOS stuck in a loop (such as contactsd syncing Contacts all night) used to go unnoticed: the Mac looked only a little busier than usual. Alerts now watch each program across its restarts and warn when one keeps about a core busy for an hour, and Ask's Processor tile names it and says what to do. Apps you are using, and jobs that finish on their own such as Spotlight indexing, stay observations first. It has its own switch in Settings > Alerts.
• Ask names the app behind its busiest processes: a build's compiler runs count as Xcode, and Chrome's helpers as Chrome. System processes that keep growing get advice that fits them instead of "quit and reopen".
• The Ask preview's optional Qwen and DeepAnalyze downloads, its local AI worker and its report Shortcuts are gone. Models downloaded by earlier versions are deleted to free the space. Siri and Shortcuts can still open Ask.
• The Dashboard's right-hand rail shows a CPU usage history chart directly under the live CPU cores grid, with its average, peak and minimum band. It replaces the rail's Swap chart, which repeated the Swap card already in the row of memory cards.
• With one or two charts showing, the Explorer stacks them full width and shares the window height between them instead of leaving most of the workspace empty.
• An Explorer chart no longer lets a single spike set its whole axis. When a few isolated samples tower over the rest, the axis fits the rest and the chart header shows the spike's value; click it to see the full scale.
• Tabs you have left stop working in the background. On macOS 26 and later every tab visited since the window opened kept updating while hidden, so a long session grew slower and used more memory with each tab opened. The app also launches about a second faster, and the Processes, Hardware and Explorer tabs open more quickly.
• The app does less work in the background. The history database is flushed once a minute instead of every 15 seconds, which cuts what it writes to disk by about a tenth. The leak scan runs in under half the time with about half the memory, alert checks no longer re-sort a week of past alerts each time, and chart history the app no longer needs is released sooner.

Fixed

• The main window can enter full screen even when it opens while the app is running in the background without a Dock icon.
• The menu bar item keeps its place after an update (#120). macOS forgot the position of the unnamed item whenever the app was replaced, so each update put it back beside the notch, where a crowded menu bar hides it. The item now has a stable name, so a spot you Command-drag it to survives updates. The first launch of this version still uses the default spot.
• The app no longer crashes when a process inspector's Disk I/O charts show a process that has just restarted. The restart gap marker reached the rate label as NaN, which crashed the app when converted to a whole number. Rate labels now treat missing values as zero, and chart summaries skip gap markers.
• The menu bar item appears again when a specific language is chosen (#124). With the language set to anything but Follow System, the app restarted itself in place at launch to apply it. On macOS 27 the menu bar could not recognise the restarted process, so the item never showed. The language is now applied without a restart.
• Turning Hide Notch off outside the menu now brings the notch back. The display switch is permanent, and only the menu's Show Notch used to undo it, so writing hideNotch false while the menu bar item was invisible left the Mac on the notch-free resolution. At launch the app now restores the notched resolution when it made the switch itself. A resolution picked in System Settings is left alone.
• Leak and memory budget alerts no longer flicker in the menu bar. Every process scan briefly marked them unknown because its samples were stamped a few milliseconds after the moment they were checked against, so an alert appeared and vanished before it could be read.
• The main window can be dragged again on macOS 26 and 27. It opened too narrow to leave any empty toolbar beside the tab strip, which is the only place to grab it. The minimum and default widths now fit the tab titles of the chosen language with room to spare.

Exact-build changelog: https://github.com/Zesty0wl/mac-performance-monitor/blob/v2.3.0.279/CHANGELOG.md

Source: https://github.com/Zesty0wl/mac-performance-monitor/releases/tag/v2.3.0.279

Mac Performance Monitor 2.2.1

Build 261, 23 September 2026. For Apple silicon Macs running macOS 15 or later. This update includes changes since 2.2.0, build 260.

Download the signed installer. Existing installs can use Check for Updates through Sparkle. Homebrew uses the same installer; its cask update may arrive after this release.

Liquid Glass Is Back

On macOS 26 and 27, version 2.2.0 showed the older, pre-Liquid Glass look. Thanks to Frank Yang for reporting it in #117.

The cause was a bug in our build script, not in the app itself. 2.2.0 was our first release built with Xcode 27. Its default Swift build engine recorded the macOS 15 deployment target as the SDK the app was built with. macOS uses that value to decide whether an app gets the current design, so it gave 2.2.0 the compatibility appearance.

The build now records the real SDK, and packaging refuses any app binary that reports an SDK older than 26. Mac Performance Monitor still supports macOS 15.

Startup

Start minimised is a new setting in Settings > General > Startup, on by default. With the menu bar on, the app starts without opening its main window, including at login. Turn it off to show the window at startup. The window always opens at startup if the menu bar is off, and first-run setup still appears.

The main window no longer restores itself at startup from macOS launch data; the saved startup setting decides. A pinned Dock icon no longer takes focus when no window is open.

GitHub Star Request

After at least seven days, and once you have used both a menu bar panel and the main window, the app asks once whether you would like to star it on GitHub. It waits until the main window is in front with no other prompt showing. Either answer stops future requests. The usage flags it checks stay on your Mac.

Further Reading

• Full changelog.

• 2.2.0 release notes, including the Ask preview, GPU bandwidth history, and known limits.

• Security policy.

Source: https://github.com/Zesty0wl/mac-performance-monitor/releases/tag/v2.2.1.261

Mac Performance Monitor 2.2.0

Build 260, 20 September 2026. For Apple silicon Macs running macOS 15 or later. This update includes changes since 2.1.0, build 236.

Download the signed installer. Existing installs can use Check for Updates through Sparkle. Homebrew uses the same installer; its cask update may arrive after this release.

GPU And Neural Engine

The GPU tab now charts Total, Reads, and Writes on one bandwidth timeline. It follows the same time range as utilization, with hover values and recorded bounds. The chart is marked Preview: it estimates GB/s from bandwidth buckets reported by macOS. Actual traffic can be higher. One quiet caption explains this limit, instead of repeating a warning under each value.

ANE Time shows Neural Engine work that macOS accounts for, in milliseconds per second. It needs macOS 27 and available counters. It is not a percent of compute capacity and cannot reliably attribute shared services to one app.

ANE Power is a separate estimate in watts from Apple's powermetrics. It needs the approved Full Coverage helper; ANE Time does not. Both have their own cards and charts, plus a 60-second view in the GPU menu. Missing readings stay unavailable, not zero.

GPU awake replaces the old Active label. It means time powered and clocked, including waits, not time spent doing work. GPU Memory and GPU awake now have recorded detail charts. Clock-state bars remain on the right with clearer help.

Ask About This Mac (Preview)

Open Ask from the toolbar, app menu, or menu bar. Current reports work without AI. To ask questions and generate explanations, enable the separate choices in Ask settings.

With your consent, the local model can request up to four read-only checks of recorded performance data from the past seven days. It cites the readings, states uncertainty, and suggests a next check. It cannot run commands, delete files, or change settings. Closing Ask clears the conversation.

Apple's on-device model is the default. It needs macOS 26.4 or later, supported hardware, and Apple Intelligence enabled. Optional downloads offer other local models:

Model	Approximate Download	Status
Qwen3 4B	2.3 GB	Optional
Qwen3.5 4B	3.1 GB	Experimental
DeepAnalyze 8B	5.0 GB	Experimental; higher memory use

Downloaded models need at least 16 GiB RAM and normal memory pressure. Each has its own download and removal controls. The two experimental choices need an explicit Download action. The original Qwen can download when you select it with explanations enabled. No model weights ship inside the app.

Ask explains why a model is paused or an answer was rejected. Measured reports remain available. Model choices stay explicit, with no silent switch to another model or cloud service. Generated answers can still be wrong, even when their citations pass checks. The new experimental models still need real-model tests.

Preview Siri and Shortcuts actions can open Ask or share current reports. Sharing has separate consent. Apple controls Siri processing; Shortcuts can send results to other actions, so do not assume that path stays on this Mac.

Process Usage Timeline

Right-click a process and choose Usage Timeline to see when the recorder observed it running. This is sampled process history, not proof of foreground use or attention.

Optional Apple app and media activity appears in separate lanes. It needs Full Disk Access and a per-window opt-in. Device and foreground status are not verified. These optional records stay in memory and are not added to the app's performance database.

Ranges And Fixes

History views start at 30 minutes when no range is saved. Each view remembers its own choice across tab changes and restarts. Explorer keeps your chosen zoom span without replacing it when you open an alert.

Missing GPU OFF-state readings no longer appear as 100% awake. The main-window toolbar also stays mounted while content loads or the window reopens.

Before You Upgrade

• New GPU history grows from new recordings. Older logs cannot supply bandwidth, GPU memory, awake time, or ANE readings they never stored. Keep recording on to build these charts, and back up your data before testing a downgrade.

• GPU and Neural Engine counters vary with hardware and macOS. The bandwidth preview is approximate, and power is not a measure of utilization.

• Local AI can stop under memory or thermal pressure, even on an eligible Mac. Ask is a preview, not a verified diagnosis. Check its cited evidence.

• English, Simplified Chinese, German, and French have full string coverage. New generated translations still need native review. Broader Siri/Shortcuts, model, and workload testing remains incomplete; treat the new AI features as previews.

Performance history stays on your Mac. Model downloads, updates, signed content, and network tools make network requests; they do not upload performance history.

Further Reading

• Full changelog.

• GPU guide.

• Ask preview scope.

• Security policy.

Source: https://github.com/Zesty0wl/mac-performance-monitor/releases/tag/v2.2.0.260