Check your Mac.
Open Spare from the menu bar for CPU use, memory pressure, and the apps and projects using the most.
A free macOS menu bar app
See what’s using
your Mac.
For people who push their Macs to the limit.
Dozens of tabs. Multiple projects. AI agents working alongside you. Spare shows what’s using your CPU and memory, right in your menu bar, so you can decide what to keep running and what to close.
Free. No subscription. No account.
macOS 14+ · Apple silicon · MIT licensed
Room to work
Memory pressure looks healthy.
CPU22%of total processing power
Memory pressureNormal18 GB of 32 GB used
Native to your MacRuns locallyNo account requiredYou choose what closes
Built for serious multitaskers
The tabs are only
part of the story.
Your browser is full of research. Slack and Notion are open. Dev servers are running across projects, and AI agents are working in parallel. It’s how you get things done.
With that much going on, it’s easy to lose track of what’s still running. Spare connects CPU and memory readings to the work you recognize, so you can spot what needs attention and close what you’re finished with.
Keep an eye on a busy Mac
A glance. An explanation.
A decision you understand.
See what’s behind it.
Open an item to see what it is, its helpers or sessions, how its memory use has changed, and what closing it affects.
Choose what to close.
Review an app, one session, or a whole project. Spare asks it to stop and checks the next readings for the result.
Useful context, right where you need it
Get from “what is that?”
to “I know what to do.”
01 / UNDERSTANDYour work has names.
Your work has names.
Your monitor should, too.
See apps with their helpers, development tools grouped by project, and recognized AI agents with the tools they launch.
Search by app, folder, or listening port. Filter Apps, Projects, or Agents, then sort by memory or CPU.
Recognizes common local tools including Claude, Codex, Ollama, Aider, and OpenCode. Attribution is based on visible process ownership.
websiteDevelopment · 3 processes
Memory1.2 GB
Local serverPort 3000
About this project
Development tools running from this folder, such as local previews, builds, and watchers.
Illustrative project view
02 / NOTICECatch the change.
Catch the change.
Keep the context.
Five-minute memory charts show what’s growing. Daily and weekly recaps show how hard your Mac worked, what used the most resources, and when pressure increased.
Enable notifications for sustained CPU or memory pressure. Spare also changes its menu bar indicator when a reading deserves attention.
Growth is a clue, not a diagnosis. Spare explains when added helpers or sessions may account for the increase.
Memory over time
Up 320 MB over 3 minutes
3 minutes agoNow
Pressure easedHealthy readings for 30 seconds.
Sample readings, not a performance claim
03 / DECIDEClose the task
Close the task
you’re finished with.
Several sessions in one project? Review one and leave the others running. Spare explains the consequences before you approve a quit or stop request.
The review freezes the exact process list. New processes aren’t swept into that request, and Spare checks whether the requested tasks remain visible afterward.
No automatic cleanup or force killing. Unidentified background tasks have no stop button.
Before closing
Stop this session?
Stopping this session interrupts its agent and running tools. Finish or save your work in the agent first.
Claude · apiOne session · 6 processes
Only the processes in this review would receive a stop request.
Illustrative review · No action is taken on this website
The details, taken care of
Small in your menu bar.
Thoughtful all the way through.
A clear health overview
CPU and memory readings updated every three seconds, plus a review suggestion when pressure is elevated.
App and helper grouping
Related processes appear together. Unidentified processes stay available when you want to inspect them.
Projects, agents, and sessions
Identify local development work, inspect individual sessions, see listening TCP ports, and reveal the project in Finder.
Search that speaks your language
Find an app, project folder, or port. Switch between Apps, Projects, and Agents, or sort the list by memory and CPU.
Memory trends
Five-minute charts and measured growth highlights. Tracking resets across restarts and monitoring gaps.
Daily and weekly recaps
Open a larger, resizable Recap window for Today, This week, or Last 7 days. Review CPU charts, memory-pressure time, resource rankings, and previous-period comparisons.
While you were away
Return to a summary of observed resource use after an idle period. See which leading apps, projects, and agents are still running.
Export your readings
Save hourly system and workload summaries as CSV for the selected period. Keep a record or explore the numbers in your own spreadsheet.
A recent-activity timeline
Look back over 15 minutes of pressure changes, recoveries, and contributor snapshots. Jump from an entry to current readings.
Warnings on your terms
A menu bar indicator and optional notifications for sustained pressure. Launch at login is optional, too.
Reviewed closing controls
Read the consequences, approve a specific set of processes, and get follow-up feedback. Apps receive a normal quit request.
Details when you want them
Click the info beside a recap reading for a plain-English explanation. Inspect process details when needed, or open Activity Monitor for a closer look.
Your Mac. Your business.
The only place your
readings need to go
is in front of you.
Spare’s monitoring runs on your Mac. No account, telemetry, or cloud service is involved.
- No tab contents, command-line arguments, or environment variables collected.
- Recaps save up to 30 days of hourly summaries on your Mac, including app and project names. Pause recording or clear saved history at any time.
- The short live-memory charts and recent-activity timeline disappear when Spare quits.
- MIT-licensed source, built with SwiftUI, AppKit, and native macOS process APIs.
This website uses Fathom Analytics to measure visits. Analytics are not included in the Mac app.
The source is public on GitHub under the MIT license.
A few things worth knowing
Before you make room.
How is Spare different from Activity Monitor?
Spare focuses on recognizable apps, projects, and sessions, with explanations of what they do and what closing them affects. Activity Monitor remains useful for deeper system inspection; Spare includes a shortcut to open it.
Can it tell me which Chrome tab is using memory?
Not yet. Spare groups a browser with its related helpers, so you can see its overall resource use. It does not identify individual tabs or read their contents.
Will it stop my agent or close an app automatically?
No. You review and approve each request. Spare asks apps to quit normally and sends stop requests to reviewed development processes. An app may ask you to save, refuse to close, or be restarted by another service.
Does high memory use mean something is wrong?
Not necessarily. macOS uses available memory for useful work. Spare relies on macOS memory pressure for memory warnings, rather than treating a high RAM or swap total as a problem. Growth highlights are context, not a memory-leak diagnosis.
Does Spare work with my development tools?
It recognizes common runtimes and local AI tools, including Claude, Codex, Ollama, Aider, and OpenCode. Project and session ownership is inferred from executable paths, working directories, and parent processes. Some tools may appear as generic development tasks. It doesn’t inspect Docker containers.
Can I see a recap of my day or week?
Yes. Choose Today, This week, or Last 7 days in the dedicated Recap window to see CPU trends, elevated memory-pressure time, the biggest recorded resource users, and busy hours. Export the selected period as CSV. Comparisons appear once both periods have enough history. Recording starts when Spare runs; sleep, pauses, and missed readings are shown as unobserved time. Running time does not measure active use. Summaries stay on your Mac for up to 30 days, with controls to pause recording and clear history.
What does “while you were away” mean?
After five minutes without keyboard or mouse input, Spare starts a temporary resource summary while history recording is enabled. Return after at least a minute of recorded readings to see it. The first five minutes and time asleep are excluded. Spare reads only elapsed idle time, not keystrokes or mouse contents. The summary does not imply an agent finished its work; it stays in memory for up to 18 hours or until you dismiss it or quit.
Which Macs can run it?
The download requires macOS 14 or later and an Apple-silicon Mac (M1 or newer). An Intel download is not available. Building from source requires full Xcode.
Is it free and open source?
Spare is free, with no subscription or account required. Its current source is MIT licensed, which permits use and modification, including commercial use. The source is public on GitHub, and the download is signed and notarized by Apple. There is no paid plan or account requirement in the current app.
Will Spare prevent every slowdown or freeze?
No. It helps you understand CPU and memory use and notices sustained pressure. It does not diagnose every cause of a slowdown, measure per-app power use, or fix system-level contention.
For everything you have going on
Free to use. Yours to explore.
Download Spare for Apple silicon, or explore the MIT-licensed source on GitHub. Free to use, with no subscription or account.
Version 0.8.0 · macOS 14+ · Apple silicon
Download
Free for Apple-silicon Macs running macOS 14 or later.
View source code
Read, modify, and build Spare under the MIT license.
Open the DMG, drag Spare to Applications, and launch. Signed and notarized by Apple.