What is Microsoft Teams on Mac?
By Junaid, maker of Taskglass · Last reviewed
Microsoft's chat and meetings app, along with its web view and helper processes.
Microsoft Teams runs as several processes: the main app (MSTeams), WebView helpers that display its web-based interface, and additional helpers for meetings and notifications. Older 'classic' Teams used 'Microsoft Teams Helper' processes instead. Meetings with video, many chats and long uptime all increase its usage.
- Category
- Third-party
- Made by
- Microsoft
- Safe to quit:
- Yes
Shown in Activity Monitor as Microsoft Teams, MSTeams, Microsoft Teams WebView, Microsoft Teams WebView Helper, Microsoft Teams WebView Helper (Renderer), Microsoft Teams WebView Helper (GPU), Microsoft Teams ModuleHost, com.microsoft.teams2.agent, Microsoft Teams Helper, Microsoft Teams Helper (Renderer)
Why is Microsoft Teams using so much CPU or memory?
- Video meetings, especially with background effects
- Many chats, teams and channels open
- Long uptime without restarting the app
- Syncing after being offline
What to do
- 1Turn off background effects in meetings
- 2Quit Teams fully (Teams menu > Quit) and reopen it to free memory
- 3Keep Teams updated
- 4If it misbehaves, sign out and back in
Safe to quit? Yes.
Safe to quit outside meetings; you'll miss notifications until you reopen it.
Typical usage
Rough ranges on Apple Silicon Macs. Yours will vary.
- Memory
- 500 MB – 2 GB across all its processes
Related processes
Part of the Taskglass Process Library