What is Little Snitch on Mac?
By Junaid, maker of Taskglass · Last reviewed
A firewall app that shows and controls which apps connect to the internet.
Little Snitch is a network monitor and firewall that alerts you when apps try to make network connections and lets you allow or deny them. It runs a system-wide daemon, a per-user helper for alerts and the menu bar, and a network extension that does the actual filtering. Its activity grows with your network traffic.
- Category
- Third-party
- Made by
- Objective Development
- Safe to quit:
- With care
Shown in Activity Monitor as Little Snitch, Little Snitch Agent, Little Snitch Daemon, at.obdev.littlesnitch.networkextension
Why is Little Snitch using so much CPU or memory?
- Lots of network connections (downloads, sync, browsing)
- Large rule sets or blocklists
- Network Monitor window open and updating live
What to do
- 1Close the Network Monitor window when not needed
- 2Remove blocklists you don't need
- 3Update Little Snitch
- 4Restart your Mac
Safe to quit? With care.
Quitting its components can stop network filtering or alerts; change its mode from the app instead.
Related processes
- nehelperManages settings for VPNs, content filters and other Network Extension apps.
- endpointsecuritydRuns and supervises security tools (antivirus, monitoring) that use Apple's Endpoint Security system.
- socketfilterfwThe built-in macOS firewall, controlling which apps may accept incoming connections.
Part of the Taskglass Process Library