The Hidden Way to Monitor Mac Temperature for Free

Apple silicon – including the M1 and new M2 chips –has a reputation to stay Cold even under intense workload. Intel Macs, on the other hand, run notoriously hot. They’re still powerful computers, but they heat up quickly, which in turn slows things down. If you have an Intel-based Mac, you’ve probably experienced this computational heatwave yourself. Instead of guessing how hot your computer will get, however, there is one Hidden monitor built in any Intel-based Mac to let you know exactly what is the internal temperature.

Why Your Mac Overheats (And Why It’s Bad)

I have already spoken about this topicif I mainly focused on laptops. Regardless of whether you have a MacBook or an iMac, the general principle is the same: you don’t want your computer to overheat.

Computers get hot because the internal components, namely the CPU and GPU, generate heat while they are working. Depending on your computer, you may not notice it for easy tasks. However, once you start pushing the machine, you’ll feel it the temperature is rising.

It’s not like that heat will damage or break your computer. I mean it absolutely could be, but manufacturers make sure that will never happen. A little heat is fine; The parts aredesigned to function normally over a wide temperature range. However, if the fries get too hot—usually around 90 degrees Fhonor—Your computer will slow down its processing speed in order to cool things down, a process known as “throttling.”

Throttling sucks because it means You don’t get the performance you expect your machine. TRUEa slow machine is better than a burned and broken one one, but avoiding the overheating problem in the first place can help you prevent throttle before it kicks inand unleash the maximum potential of your Mac.

while there is many options against overheating, One is to keep an eye on your Mac’s temperature. And if If you have an Intel Mac, you already have a monitor built right into macOS.

The macOS hidden temperature monitors for Intel Macs

You won’t find these temperature monitors by browsing the apps installed on your Mac. You won’t even find them in Activity Monitor, a useful utility as it is. Instead, your Mac’s temperature monitor resides in the Terminal. Use Terminal may seem intimidating to many users, as it allows you to control your Mac using only text-based commands. But you don’t have to remember any of ite commands to use Terminal; A copy and paste command works just as well.

There are many useful terminal commands that anyone can use (We’ve covered many of them in this piece) but we concentrate This time on the temperature monitors. There are two commands you can use here. The first lets you see temperature statistics for your Mac’s CPU. Copy and paste the following command just as is in a new terminal window (quotes and all):

sudo powermetrics —samplers smc |grep -i “CPU-Die-Temperature”

If you did it correctly, Terminal will ask for your password. Type it in (sorry, you can’t see what you’re typing), then press Enter. After a moment, you’ll see temperature readings that update approximately every five seconds. Temperatures are in Celsius, so you’ll have to convert them to Fahrenheit yourself, but after a while you’ll realize which temperatures are cool, warm, and hot to hot.

Speaking of which, you will too get access to one of my favorite data points in macOS: when it gets too hot and your Mac decides what it needs to cool things below, you’ll see (Fan) written next to the temperatures (if your Mac has fans, that is). This lets you know the fans are starting to work harder to remove hot air from your machine. Fans are obviously a good tool for cooling computers, but they’re not perfect: if your CPU is still heating up to unsafe levels –usually 98 degrees Fahrenheit, over my experience in the terminal—You will start to see (Energy) instead of this. When this indicator appears, it means macOS is throttling your CPU to prevent the temperature from going overboard.

You can also check your GPU temperatures with the following command:

sudo powermetrics —samplers smc |grep -i “GPU-Die-Temperature”

Note that you won’t see it (Fan) or (Energy) appear in this terminal windowonly temperature measurements.

Apple silicon options

While Apple’s suite of silicon chips doesn’t experience as many heat ramps as Intel-based Macs, they can still overheat and throttle like any other chip. Unfortunately this built in terminal command doesn’t work on M1 and newer since thoThese chips are designed differently than Intel chips when it comes to handling heat.

The only solid temperature monitor for Apple silicon on the market rightright is now TG Prowhich involves costs. It is usually $20, although at the time of writing this articleit is on sale for $10. If you’re looking for a temporary fix, the app offers a two-week free trial, so you can monitor your temperatures on the M1, M2, or any other Apple silicon variant for 14 days for free.

As Apple silicon is adopted by more and more Mac users, hopefully developers will write more temperature-monitoring apps for the platform. Hey, maybe Apple will even make their own — for free.