Know exactly what your Mac is doing.
Your Mac's vital signs, in the menu bar.
A lightweight, native macOS monitor that watches CPU, GPU, memory, network, heat, battery and Bluetooth devices — plus live local-LLM detection & speed tests, 30-day history, and a health score that names what’s dragging it down.
The direct build includes system readings Apple’s sandbox limits. Compare the builds.
macOS 13+ · free 14-day trial · one-time $14.99 after · no subscription · nothing leaves your Mac
One dashboard for every part of your Mac
- Performance, Local LLM, Network, Storage, Energy and System, all one click away
- A 0–100 health score that names exactly what's dragging it down
- Free where you live day to day; Pro unlocks the deep dashboard
Vitals
Trial · 9d
Overview
A live snapshot of your Mac's healthEverything you want to know
One glance. The whole machine.
From a tidy menu-bar readout to a deep, chart-rich dashboard — Vitals shows you what's happening and what it means.
Menu-bar vitals
Just the Vitals mark by default — clean and unobtrusive. Add live CPU, GPU, RAM & network readouts with mini-graphs whenever you want. Click for a rich popover snapshot.
Local-LLM tools
Auto-detects Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp & more. Runs real tokens/sec speed tests and shows VRAM headroom. Custom-port discovery: direct build.
30-day history
Every metric charted over a month, searchable — with weekly reports you can export to CSV.
Heat, fans & health
Per-component temperatures, fan speed readouts and thermal throttling detection, with the app that triggered it named. S.M.A.R.T. disk health: direct build.
Crash & panic watch
Surfaces app crashes and kernel panics with a plain-English explanation of what actually happened. Direct build only — the App Store sandbox blocks it.
Live desktop widget
A floating, always-on-top panel that updates every second — not on a slow schedule. Drag it anywhere, expand it to the full dashboard, or jump to the overview window in one click.
Bluetooth & peripherals
Battery level for your connected keyboard, mouse, trackpad and headphones, right alongside your Mac's own battery.
Battery vampires
Catches a single app quietly pinning the CPU and draining your charge — on battery, or always, if you turn that on. Tame it, Freeze it (and Resume later, nothing lost), or Force Quit it in one tap.
Sleep drain report
Every sleep and wake, tracked — plus the battery it cost you and what was still holding a wake lock right as the lid closed. The answer to the backpack-hot, battery-drained mystery.
Smart alerts
Customizable threshold alerts, with an optional push to your iPhone the moment something needs attention.
Deep customization
Twelve themes, full menu-bar layout control, and a live desktop widget that matches how you like to work.
Every core named right
Reads Apple Silicon's true performance tiers (hw.perflevelN) — correctly labeling Super, Performance and Efficiency cores instead of guessing. Includes a throttling timeline that points to the exact app causing it.
Network lab & Wi-Fi
Real-time latency, jitter, packet loss, DNS benchmarks, rolling Wi-Fi signal/noise history, and monthly data-cap tracking so nothing sneaks past you.
Storage & SSD wear
Read/write speed tests, which apps are writing heavily to your drive, Time Machine status and reclaimable space. Bytes-written tally & S.M.A.R.T. ratings: direct build.
Built for the local-AI era.
Running models on your own Mac? Vitals finds your local inference servers automatically — named or not — and tells you what's actually running and how fast.
- ✓Detects Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, vLLM, Jan, GPT4All, KoboldCpp and more on their default ports — and, in the direct-download build, on custom ports too.
- ✓One-tap speed test reports real tokens/second — the number people actually compare models by.
- ✓Watches VRAM headroom and loaded-model details while you work.
- ✓Forgot a model was loaded? Quit reclaims the VRAM in one tap — no Activity Monitor needed.
- ✓All local. It talks only to servers already on your machine — nothing is uploaded.
A closer look
Depth when you want it.
Simple, honest pricing
Free to monitor. 14 days free to go deep.
Use the menu-bar readout, popover snapshot, and live desktop widget free forever. Try every deep diagnostic tool free for 14 days — no card required. Keep Pro with a single $14.99 purchase. No subscription, ever.
Free Forever
- ✓Live menu-bar readout (CPU, RAM, network)
- ✓Rich popover snapshot & overview window
- ✓Live, always-on-top desktop widget
- ✓Twelve glass themes
- ✓Full Pro access for your first 14 days
Or get it on the Mac App Store.
Vitals Pro
- ✓Everything in Free, plus…
- ✓Full performance dashboard & per-core breakdown
- ✓Local-LLM tools, speed tests & VRAM reclaim
- ✓Network tools, thermals & fan speeds
- ✓Bluetooth peripheral battery & menu-bar layout editor
- ✓30-day historical charts & CSV export
- ✓Threshold alerts with iPhone push (crash & panic explanations: direct build)
- ✓All future updates included
14-day free trial included. Buying directly (not via the Mac App Store)? Lemon Squeezy emails your license key after purchase — see the Buying & License FAQ.
| Feature / Metric | Free Version | Vitals Pro ($14.99 Once) |
|---|---|---|
| Menu-Bar Readout & Live Stats | Included Forever | ✓ Fully customizable icons, mini-graphs & order |
| Floating Desktop Widget | Included Forever | ✓ Included — compact or full layout, no upgrade needed |
| Glass Themes | 12 Themes Included | ✓ 12 Themes Included |
| Per-Core Performance Clusters (P, E & S Cores) | Basic overall CPU % | ✓ True Apple Silicon core-level hardware tiers |
| Local-LLM Tools (Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp) | Basic process list | ✓ Auto-detection, tokens/sec speed tests & VRAM reclaim |
| 30-Day Historical Logging & CSV Export | Live snapshot only | ✓ 30 days of metrics charted with weekly CSV reports |
| Battery Vampires & Sleep Drain Report | Current battery % only | ✓ Tame, Freeze/Resume vampire apps & sleep wake-lock log |
| Thermals, Fan Speed & S.M.A.R.T. Disk Wear | Standard Apple sensors | ✓ Per-sensor breakdown & fan RPM monitoring S.M.A.R.T. & SSD write wear: direct-download build |
| Crash & Kernel Panic Watch | None | ✓ Plain-English crash explanations & iPhone push alerts Direct-download build only |
The Architecture of Privacy
What Vitals does NOT do.
Most monitoring apps ask for your email, phone home on startup, or upload telemetry. Vitals operates under a strict zero-knowledge design.
No Telemetry or Tracking
Zero analytics SDKs. No Google Analytics, no Mixpanel, no Firebase, and no Sentry telemetry. We do not know who you are, what Mac you own, or what apps you run.
No Account or Registration
No sign-in, no passwords, and no email newsletter signups required. Download, double-click, and start monitoring immediately. Pro unlocks with a standard App Store purchase or license, verified on your Mac.
No Telemetry, One Honest Exception
Vitals reads your Mac locally via IOKit, sysctl, and SMC. It has no analytics endpoint and no server of ours to call. One connection runs on its own: the Internet-health card times a TCP handshake to 1.1.1.1 every five seconds to measure latency, jitter and packet loss — no payload, and only while Pro is unlocked. Every other outbound tool — speed test, DNS benchmark, public-IP check, ping, traceroute, phone-push alerts — runs only when you press it. Check all of it yourself with Little Snitch, LuLu, or Wireshark.
Compatibility & System Requirements
Built for modern macOS.
Universal 2 binary running natively on macOS 13 Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia, and macOS 26 Tahoe. Here is how features adapt to your hardware:
Apple Silicon (M1 and newer)
Full hardware-level feature set unlocked via native Apple Silicon APIs:
- ✓True core cluster labeling: Uses
hw.perflevelNto accurately label Super, Performance, and Efficiency cores. - ✓Thermal throttling timeline: Direct hardware event attribution pointing to the exact app causing thermal throttling.
- ✓Local LLM & Unified Memory: Live VRAM headroom and tokens/second benchmarks for Ollama / LM Studio.
Intel Macs
Comprehensive monitoring using standard macOS kernel metrics:
- ✓Full CPU & RAM monitoring: Real-time overall and per-core CPU utilization, memory pressure, and swap usage.
- ✓Thermals & Fan monitoring: Sensor temperatures and fan RPM readouts.
- ✓Battery, Network & Disk: Battery cycle counts, live bandwidth throughput, Wi-Fi latency, and — in the direct-download build — S.M.A.R.T. health and SSD wear.
Know your Mac.
Native, lightweight, and free to try — no card, no account, no subscription.
Requires macOS 13 Ventura or later. Universal (Apple Silicon & Intel).