Choose the process category you'd like to check on.To access the Activity Monitor go to Finder, Applications, Utilities.Additionally, if you know what you are doing you can modify the periodic schedule by editing the nf file located at:Įditing the periodic schedule should only be considered by advanced users and systems administrators, and a backup of the nf file should be made prior to adjustment.The easiest way to check system performance on a Mac is to use the Activity Monitor, a built-in application that gives you a live overview of your Mac’s hard drive, RAM, processor, and network usage. You can also manually run ‘periodic’ which will run the maintenance scripts system wide or on a specified directory basis.

You can read more about the maintenance schedule of Mac OS X by reading the man page for ‘periodic’, to do so, at the command line type the following: Sometimes you will the “find” process running concurrently with “makewhatis” and this is also normal.ĭespite the name, ‘find’ is not directly related to Spotlight or the mdworker and MDS process and they usually are not run together.Īdvanced: adjusting the periodic update schedule If you leave your Mac running, you likely won’t encounter the process, however if you sleep your Mac, you may notice the process appear in the task manager or Activity Monitor upon the system waking. You’ll usually see “find” running early in the morning, it’s scheduled to run at 3:15am daily, and then again on 4:30am Saturdays and 5:30am on the first day of a new month. The “find” process is run by user “nobody” and is a normal part of Mac OS X system maintenance, and according to Apple the process clears caches, updates system databases, and removes temporary files that are used by Mac OS X for a variety of functions.

Osx process monitor