gauge Source on GitHub

See what’s eating your memory

A small macOS menu bar app that shows how much memory, disk and CPU you’re using, and what’s taking it up.

Download

macOS 13 or later, Apple silicon and Intel. Free and open source (MIT).

Unzip it and drag gauge.app to Applications.

gauge open from the menu bar: 21 GB of 32 GB memory used, 241 GB of 995 GB disk free, 23% CPU used, and the top apps by memory, with the pointer on Google Chrome’s Quit button
The icon is two bars - memory on the left, disk on the right. Memory turns orange or red when macOS reports memory pressure, disk turns red once it’s over 90% full. Right-click it to also show CPU and GPU bars.

Memory

  • Used out of total, split into apps, wired and compressed, plus the pressure level
  • Your top apps by memory. Helpers count toward their app, so Safari’s tabs show up under Safari
  • Command line tools like node or claude get their own row, with the command and the folder they’re running in
  • Click an app to switch to it. Hover a row to quit it, or right-click it to force quit - macOS’s own processes are never offered

Storage

  • Free space out of total
  • The biggest apps, files and folders (500 MB and up) in Applications and your home folder, with when you last opened them
  • Show in Finder or Move to Trash, and empty the Trash from there
  • Full Disk Access is optional, you only need it for a complete scan

CPU & GPU

  • Total CPU used across your cores, split into user and system, plus current GPU utilization
  • Your top apps and command line tools by CPU, with the same click-to-switch and Quit actions

How light it is

Measured on an M5 Pro with macOS 27.2, gauge sitting in the menu bar.

  • Memory and per-app numbers come straight from the kernel, no ps or top running in the background
  • The icon updates every 5 seconds (2 with CPU or GPU bars showing) and free disk space is only checked once a minute
  • The window refreshes every 2 seconds, only while it’s open
  • The storage scan is one low priority du run, saved to disk so it doesn’t run again on every launch
Memory
54 MB
CPU
0.18% on average0.21 s of CPU time in 2 minutes
App size
2.2 MB609 KB to download, Apple silicon and Intel
Code
1,194 lines of Swift
Dependencies
None