BetterMac bmtop quick start and keyboard controls

Run bmtop to open the interactive terminal UI. Its nine panels and common process actions are keyboard driven.

BetterMac bmtop process view showing CPU, GPU, memory, and sortable per-process energy data
BetterMac bmtop process view showing CPU, GPU, memory, and sortable per-process energy data.

Open the interactive UI

Run bmtop, then use 1–9, F1–F9, the arrow keys, or Tab to move between panels.

bmtop

Search, sort, and control

Press / to search, Space to pause, ? for help, and q to quit.

  • P, M, N: sort by CPU, memory, or PID
  • E, W: sort by Energy Impact or estimated power
  • V: toggle the process tree; H: show threads for the selected process
  • x or k requests termination; X requests forced termination, always with confirmation

Scripts and machine output

Metric commands support JSON/JSONL; process and network output also support CSV. Use -n to limit samples.

bmtop ps --sort energy --limit 10
bmtop memory --format json
bmtop network -n 60 -i 1s --format jsonl
bmtop doctor --format json