The best Mac temperature monitor apps

This is the part worth clearing up first, because a lot of people search "mac activity monitor temperature" and come away confused. macOS does not show your Mac's temperature anywhere. Not in Activity Monitor, not in System Settings, not in a menu-bar widget out of the box. The sensors exist on the chip; Apple just does not surface them.

Activity Monitor is the usual dead end. It shows CPU usage, the percentage of how busy the processor is, which is load, not heat. A Mac can run at high load and stay cool, and it can warm up fast on a short burst. So the CPU tab in Activity Monitor will never tell you a temperature, no matter how long you look. If that is where you started, you are not missing a setting; it is genuinely not there.

That leaves two real routes to a temperature reading: a Terminal command that talks to the sensors directly, or a small app that does the reading for you and keeps it visible. The free no-app route is covered step by step in how to check your Mac's temperature. The apps below are the more comfortable option for watching it day to day.

iStat Menus is the complete one. It is a paid app with a one-time license, it runs on Apple Silicon and Intel, and it is the most thorough menu-bar system monitor you can buy. If your goal is to watch your Mac, this is the pick.

It puts CPU and GPU temperatures, fan speeds, processor load, memory, disk and network activity all in the menu bar, with graphs and history. It is monitoring first, and it is very good at it. It does include some fan control as a feature, but driving the fans is not its main job; seeing everything at once is. If you want a system temperature monitor for your Mac that also tells you what every other part is doing, iStat Menus is the natural choice and worth the one-time price.

Where it is more than you need is if all you actually want is to keep the Mac cool. A full dashboard is a lot of screen for one job. If you mostly want to watch, this is the strong pick; if you want something that reacts to the heat for you, read on.

Stats is the best free pick, and the one I point people to when budget is zero. It is free, open source, runs natively on Apple Silicon, and lives in the menu bar showing CPU and GPU temperatures, fan speeds and load.

For a free Mac temperature monitor it is genuinely good. It is actively maintained, it handles M-series Macs properly, and the menu-bar widget is clean and configurable. If you want to glance up and see your CPU temperature without paying anything, this is the one to install. It is monitoring only, so it will not change your fan speeds, but as a free CPU temperature monitor for a Mac it does the job well.

The trade-off against iStat Menus is polish and breadth: iStat Menus shows more and presents it more nicely, Stats shows the essentials for free. If free matters most and you want a menu-bar temperature reading, Stats is the answer.

TG Pro is the deep one. It is a paid app with a one-time license, it runs on Apple Silicon and Intel, and it goes further than the rest on both sensors and control.

It reads a long list of sensors, CPU, GPU, drives, battery and more, and shows them all. On top of the monitoring it adds rule-based fan control: you can build automation around temperatures rather than just reading them. So it sits in both camps, a detailed temperature monitor and a fan controller, which is its real strength if you want depth.

The flip side is that the depth is the point, and not everyone wants a sensor dashboard plus a rules engine. If the detail appeals, TG Pro earns its place. If it sounds like a lot for "I just want my Mac cooler", that is the gap ChillBlades fills, and I go through the trade-offs in ChillBlades compared with TG Pro.

Macs Fan Control is the capable free middle ground. The core is free, it runs on Apple Silicon and Intel, and it does both jobs to a point: it shows your Mac's sensor readings and lets you set fan speeds by hand or tie them to a sensor.

As a free monitor it shows you the temperatures, and unlike a pure dashboard it can also act on them, manually, if you set it up. There is a paid tier for extras like saved presets and more automation, but the basics are free. The interface is more utilitarian than polished, and tying fans to a sensor is a manual setup rather than something it just does for you.

Against ChillBlades the split is straightforward. Macs Fan Control wins on price and on raw monitoring breadth; ChillBlades is simpler to set and forget and is a paid app rather than a free one with a paid tier. If free monitoring with optional manual control is what you want, this fits. I have put the two side by side in full if you are deciding between them.

I will be upfront: I make ChillBlades, and it is the odd one out here on purpose. If you only want a dashboard to watch, it is the wrong pick, and I would point you at iStat Menus or Stats instead. ChillBlades is not built to show you everything; it is built to show you the one temperature that matters and then do something about it.

It is a menu-bar app, runs on Apple Silicon, M1 through the current chips, and on Intel, on macOS 13 and later, on any Mac with fans. Instead of listing every sensor, it reads the hottest of all the CPU and GPU die sensors, the figure that decides whether your Mac throttles, and shows you that. Then it acts on it. Custom mode gives each fan a slider across its real minimum and maximum, clamped in hardware. Auto Boost is the hands-off option: pick one temperature band, Warm at 80°C, Hot at 90°C, or Very hot at 100°C, and one fan speed, and the fans spin up when the Mac reaches it, then ease off about 3°C below.

So where it fits is the "watch versus act" split. The other four are about seeing the numbers; ChillBlades is about the numbers changing what the fans do. It also handles the newer M3 and M4 fan-control mechanism that some older utilities miss. It costs around $30 once, no subscription, with a seven-day trial that needs no card, and on quit every fan goes back to macOS control. macOS still protects the chip regardless of any app. If you want the step-by-step, see how to control Mac fans.

There is more than one place to see the temperature, and the right one depends on how often you want to glance at it.

A menu-bar reading is the most useful for most people: a live number in the top bar you can see without opening anything. iStat Menus, Stats, Macs Fan Control and ChillBlades all show one. A desktop or Notification Centre widget is what some monitors add on top, handy if you want the temperature visible without the menu bar getting crowded; iStat Menus and Stats are the ones to look at there. And the Terminal route needs no app at all: a built-in command can print a sensor figure on demand, which is fine for a one-off check but not for watching over time. That free no-app method is in how to check your Mac's temperature.

If the temperature you are watching is really just a runaway process heating the Mac up, it can help to know what it is. Two of the usual suspects are covered in what WindowServer is and why kernel_task shows high CPU.

Start with the honest question: do you want to watch the temperature, or also act on it?

If you mostly want to watch, pick by budget and breadth. iStat Menus is the complete paid dashboard if you want CPU and GPU temps alongside everything else your Mac is doing. Stats is the free pick that covers the essentials, and it is the one I would start with if you do not want to pay. For a genuinely free, no-app check, the Terminal route reads a sensor on demand.

If you also want something to act on the heat, the choice changes. TG Pro is the deep tool, full sensors plus granular rules, for people who enjoy the detail. ChillBlades is the focused one: it shows the hottest die temperature and drives the fans from it, with one Auto Boost band rather than a dashboard. If you specifically want to drive the fans rather than just read them, the round-up of Mac fan control apps goes deeper on that side. Either way, what the numbers mean is in the pillar on Mac temperatures and throttling.

I make ChillBlades, one of the apps in this round-up, so you should read it knowing that. I have tried to keep it honest rather than flattering: ChillBlades is the wrong pick if all you want is a dashboard to watch, and I have said plainly that iStat Menus is the complete monitor and Stats is the better free choice. ChillBlades earns its spot only if you want the temperature that matters to drive the fans. Prices and tiers move around, so I have described the shape of each model rather than quoting exact figures for the apps I do not make. Your Mac protects itself regardless of which one you run. Last reviewed June 17, 2026.

A monitor app tells you the temperature is climbing, but it stops at the reading. ChillBlades shows a live reading too, the hottest CPU or GPU temperature at the top of its window, but its real job is acting on the heat: set each fan by hand, or pick one Auto Boost band and it spins the fans up before the Mac gets hot rather than after. It lives in the menu bar, runs on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs on macOS 13 and later, and hands every fan straight back to macOS automatic control the moment you quit. There is a free 7-day trial with no card required. After that it is $30 once, with lifetime updates and no subscription.

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