Is Your Mac Overheating? Here's How to Cool It Down

A Mac that runs hot is nearly always doing one of two things: an app is keeping the processor busy, or the heat it makes has nowhere to go. Open Activity Monitor, quit the app at the top of the CPU list, and move the Mac to a hard, flat surface in a cooler spot. In most cases it cools down within a few minutes. The steps below go through each cause in order.

What counts as too hot

Warmth is normal. Exporting video, playing a game, a long video call or a big software update all make a Mac warm, and the fans (on models that have them) speed up to carry the heat away. Some Macs, such as the Apple Silicon MacBook Air, have no fan at all and shed heat through the case, so the case itself gets warm.

It is worth acting when the Mac is hot while you are doing very little, when the fans stay loud for a long time with nothing obvious running, or when macOS shows a warning or shuts down by itself.

1. Find the app doing the work

1. Open Activity Monitor (in Applications, then Utilities, or search for it with Spotlight).
2. Click the CPU tab, then click the % CPU column so the busiest process is at the top.
3. Watch for a few seconds. A process that stays near the top with a high figure is your likely cause.
4. If it is an app you know, save your work and quit it the normal way. If it will not quit, select it in Activity Monitor, click the stop button (the X) in the toolbar and choose Force Quit.

Do not force quit processes you do not recognise. Many belong to macOS, and it restarts them anyway. A browser is a common cause: one heavy tab can keep the processor busy, so close tabs you are not using.

2. Give the Mac air

• Put a laptop on a desk or table, not on a bed, sofa or cushion. Soft surfaces hold the heat in and can cover the vents.
• Keep the vents at the back and sides clear of walls, papers and cases.
• Move out of direct sunlight and never leave a Mac in a parked car. Apple gives 10 to 35 degrees Celsius (50 to 95 Fahrenheit) as the room temperature range for using a Mac laptop.

3. Lighten the load

1. Quit apps you are not using, with Command-Q, not just the red close button.
2. Open System Settings, then General, then Login Items. Remove anything under Open at Login that you do not need, and switch off background items you do not use.
3. On a Mac laptop, open System Settings, then Battery, and turn on Low Power Mode. It reduces energy use, which also means less heat.

4. Let background jobs finish, and update

After a macOS update, a large file copy or a restore from backup, the Mac spends a while indexing files for Spotlight and sorting photos. That work is temporary. Leave the Mac plugged in and awake for a while and it normally settles.

Then check System Settings, General, Software Update, and install any update on offer. Update apps that keep appearing at the top of the CPU list too.

When to ask Apple

If the Mac is hot with nothing busy in Activity Monitor, shuts down without warning, or the fans roar while it is idle in a cool room, the cause may be hardware. Contact Apple Support or an authorised service provider. No software can fix a blocked or failed fan.

What MacPrune does about it

MacPrune does not cool a Mac, and we do not claim it does. What it gives you is a clear view of what is busy. The Monitor page shows live CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network and battery figures, with the apps using the most CPU and memory listed so you can quit one from there. The menu bar has a Mac Health panel with storage, memory, battery, CPU and network at a glance.

If your disk is also nearly full, the Clean page scans for caches, logs and other files you can remove. Everything you choose moves to the Trash, and the space is freed when you empty it.

Where to go next

If the noise bothers you more than the heat, read how to fix loud fan noise. If the Mac is slow as well as hot, see why a Mac gets slow, and if the disk is close to full, how to free up Mac storage. You can download MacPrune free from the home page.