What is powerd on Mac?
By Junaid, maker of Taskglass · Last reviewed
Manages sleep, wake, battery and charging, and tracks apps asking to keep the Mac awake.
powerd is the macOS daemon behind your energy settings. It decides when the Mac and display may sleep, tracks battery and charging state, and keeps track of apps that ask the Mac to stay awake (called power assertions). It runs all the time and normally uses very little CPU.
- Category
- macOS system
- Made by
- Apple
- Safe to quit:
- No
Shown in Activity Monitor as powerd
Why is powerd using so much CPU or memory?
- Apps repeatedly asking to keep the Mac awake, then letting it sleep
- Frequent sleep and wake cycles, or a device that keeps waking the Mac
- Charger or battery changes, sometimes from a faulty cable or adapter
What to do
- 1Wait a moment; spikes around sleep and wake are normal
- 2Run 'pmset -g assertions' in Terminal to see which apps are keeping the Mac awake
- 3Unplug and reconnect the charger, or try a different cable
- 4Restart your Mac
Safe to quit? No.
Don't quit it: sleep, wake and battery management depend on it, and macOS starts it again anyway.
Typical usage
Rough ranges on Apple Silicon Macs. Yours will vary.
- CPU
- Near 0%
- Memory
- 5–30 MB
Related processes
- kernel_taskThe core of macOS itself. It also holds busy apps back on purpose to stop your Mac overheating.
- thermalmonitordWatches your Mac's temperature and helps decide when the system needs to slow down to cool off.
- PerfPowerServicesKeeps records of power and performance data, such as the battery usage history.
Part of the Taskglass Process Library