The Hidden Way to Control Your Mac’s Temperature for Free
Apple silicon, including the M1 chips and the new M2 chips, is renowned for staying cool even under intense workloads. On the other hand, Intel Mac computers are notoriously hot . These are still powerful computers, but they heat up quickly, which in turn slows things down. If you own an Intel-based Mac, you’ve probably experienced this computing heat first hand. However, instead of having to guess how hot your PC gets, every Intel-based Mac has a hidden monitor built into it that lets you know exactly what the internal temperature is.
Why Your Mac Is Overheating (And Why It’s Bad)
I’ve talked about this before , when I was mostly into laptops. However, whether you have a MacBook or an iMac, the general principle is the same: you don’t want your machine to overheat.
Computers get hot because the internal components, namely the CPU and GPU, generate heat during operation. Depending on your computer, you may not notice this when doing light tasks. However, as soon as you start pushing the car, you will feel the temperature rise.
It’s not that this heat will damage or break your computer. I mean, it’s absolutely possible, but the manufacturers are confident that this will never happen. A little warmth is ok; Parts are designed for normal operation over a wide temperature range. However, when the chips get too hot—usually around 90 degrees Fahrenheit—your computer slows down its processing speed to cool it down, a process called “throttling.”
Throttling sucks because it means you’re not getting the performance you expect from your machine. Yes, a slow machine is better than a burnt out and broken one, but avoiding the overheating problem in the first place can help you prevent throttling before it kicks in and maximize your Mac’s potential.
While there are many ways to deal with overheating , one of them is to monitor the temperature of your Mac. And if you have an Intel Mac, you already have a monitor built right into macOS.
Hidden macOS Temperature Monitors for Intel Macs
You won’t find these temperature monitors by searching through the applications installed on your Mac. You won’t even find them in Activity Monitor, no matter how useful the utility is. Rather, your Mac’s temperature monitor is in the Terminal. Using the terminal probably seems intimidating to many users because it allows you to control your Mac using only text commands. But you don’t actually need to remember any of these commands to use the Terminal; the copied and pasted command works just as well.
There are many useful terminal commands that anyone can use ( we’ve covered many of them in this article ), but this time we’ll focus on temperature monitors. Two commands can be used here. The first lets you see your Mac’s CPU temperature statistics. Copy and paste the following command exactly as it is into a new terminal window (quotes and all):
sudo powermetrics –samplers smc |grep -i “CPU core temperature”
If everything is done correctly, the Terminal will ask for your password. Type it in (unfortunately you won’t be able to see what you’re typing), then hit the return key. After a moment, you’ll start seeing temperature readings that update approximately every five seconds. Temperatures are in Celsius, so you’ll need to convert to Fahrenheit yourself, but after a while you’ll start to figure out which temperatures are cool, warm, hot, and too hot.
Speaking of which, you’ll also get access to one of my favorite data points in macOS: when it gets too hot and your Mac decides it needs to cool down, you’ll see (fan) written next to temperatures (if your Mac has fans, that is). This lets you know that the fans are starting to work harder to get hot air out of your machine. Fans are obviously a good tool for keeping computers cool, but they’re not perfect: if your CPU is still getting to unsafe levels – usually 98 degrees Fahrenheit, from my experience in Terminal – you’ll start seeing (power) instead. . When this reading appears, it means that macOS is throttling your processor to keep the temperature from going over the top.
You can also check the GPU temperature with the following command:
sudo powermetrics –samplers smc |grep -i “GPU die temperature”
Note that you will not see (fan) or (power) in this terminal window, only temperature readings.
Apple silicon options
While Apple’s silicon chip set doesn’t face as many thermal ramps as Intel-based Macs, they can still overheat and lag just like any other chip. Unfortunately, this built-in terminal command won’t work on the M1 and newer as these chips are designed differently than Intel chips in how they handle heat.
The only reliable temperature monitor for Apple Silicon available right now is the TG Pro , which is expensive. It’s usually $20, although it’s on sale for $10 as of this writing. If you’re looking for a temporary solution, the app offers a two-week free trial, so you can track your temperature on the M1, M2, or any other Apple silicon variant for free for 14 days for free.
Hopefully, as Apple Silicon is used by more and more Mac users, developers will write more temperature monitoring apps for the platform. Hey, maybe Apple will even make their own – for free.