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Apple’s silicon — including the M1 and new M2 chips — has a reputation for staying cool even under intense workloads. Intel Macs, on the other hand, run extremely hot. They’re still capable computers, but they heat up quickly, which in turn slows things down. If you have an Intel-based Mac, you’ve probably experienced this computing heat wave yourself. But instead of guessing how hot your computer is getting, every Intel-based Mac has a built-in hidden monitor that lets you know exactly what the internal temperature is.
Why your Mac is overheating (and why it’s bad)
I’ve talked about this topic before when I focused mostly on laptops. Whether you have a MacBook or an iMac, however, the general principle is the same: you don’t want your machine to overheat.
Computers heat up because the internal components, namely the CPU and GPU, generate heat as they operate. Depending on your computer, you may not notice it while doing light tasks. Once you start pushing the machine, however, you will feel the temperature rise.
Not that this heat will damage or break your computer. I mean, it absolutely could, but the manufacturers guarantee it will never happen. A little heat is good; parts are designed to operate normally over a wide range of temperatures. However, when the chips start to get too hot — usually around 90 degrees Fahrenheit — your computer will slow down its processing speed to cool things down, a process called “throttling.”
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Throttling sucks because it means you’re not getting the performance you expect from your machine. It’s true that a slow machine is better than a burnt-out and broken one, but avoiding the overheating problem in the first place can help you prevent throttling before it starts to kick in and push your Mac to its maximum potential.
While there are many ways to combat overheating, one is to monitor your Mac’s temperature. And if you have an Intel Mac, you already have a monitor built right into macOS.
macOS Hidden Temperature Monitors for Intel Macs
You won’t find these temperature monitors by looking in the apps installed on your Mac. You won’t even find them in Activity Monitor, as useful a utility as it is. Rather, your Mac’s temperature monitor resides in the Terminal. Using Terminal probably seems confusing to many users because it allows you to control your Mac using only text commands. But you don’t actually need to memorize any of these commands to use Terminal; copy and paste command works fine too.
There are many useful terminal commands that anyone can use (we’ve covered many of them in this article), but this time we’re focusing on temperature monitors. There are two commands you can use here. The first allows you to view temperature statistics for your Mac’s CPU. Copy and paste the following command exactly as it is in a new terminal window (quotes and all):
sudo powermetrics —samplers smc | grep -i “cpu die temperature”
If done correctly, the terminal will ask for your password. Type it (you won’t be able to see what you’re typing, unfortunately), then hit the return key. After a while, you’ll start seeing temperature readings that update approximately every five seconds. The temperatures are written in Celsius, so you’ll have to convert to Fahrenheit yourself, but after a while you start to understand which temperatures are cool, warm, hot, and too hot.
Speaking of which, you’ll also get access to one of my favorite macOS data points: When things start getting too hot and your Mac decides it needs to cool things down, you’ll see (fan) written next to the temperatures ( if your Mac has fans, that is). This lets you know that the fans are starting to work harder to get the hot air out of your machine. Fans are obviously a good tool for cooling PCs, but they’re not perfect: If your CPU still heats up to dangerous levels — typically 98 degrees Fahrenheit, in my experience in the terminal — you’ll start seeing (power) instead. When this reading occurs, it means that macOS is throttling your CPU to prevent excessive temperature rise.
You can also check GPU temperatures with the following command:
sudo powermetrics —samplers smc | grep -i “gpu temperature”
Note that you will not see (fan) or (power) displayed in this terminal window, only temperature readings.
Apple Silicone Options
While Apple’s array of silicon chips don’t face as many heat ramps as Intel-based Macs, they can still overheat and slow down like any other chip. Unfortunately, this built-in terminal command will not work on the M1 and newer, as these chips are designed differently than Intel chips in terms of how they handle heat.
Apple’s only solid silicon temperature monitor currently available is the TG Pro, which comes at a price. It normally costs $20, although at the time of writing it is on sale for $10. If you’re looking for a temporary solution, the app offers a two-week free trial, so you can monitor your temperatures on the M1, M2, or any other Apple silicon variant for 14 days for free.
Hopefully, as Apple’s silicon is adopted by more Mac users, developers will write more temperature monitoring apps for the platform. Hey, maybe Apple will even make their own – for free.
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