Heating of MacBook Pro 20

The heating up that you are experiencing can be caused by various reasons. It shouldn't be too much to worry about, aside from the uncomfortable heat.

I would recommend sticking with using your laptop on a flat, hard surface. The four rubber feet on the bottom of your macbook will ensure there is enough air circulation to dissipate the heat your Mac generates. Your lap (as well as your bed, etc) are a soft surfaces, and they will tend to block all the breathing vents of laptop, making the temperature rise. This in turn heats up the lap holding the device. What’s comfortable for you may not be wise for your MacBook. It’s a bad idea to put your Mac on a softer surface like your lap, pillow, or bed, as there will be inadequate air circulation under and around the computer. Even worse, because the soft fabric essentially absorbs the heat, it will make your Mac even hotter.

However, I would try making sure you don't have too many apps open at the same time. Some apps running in the background may be especially demanding on your CPU resources. To identify these apps, open the Activity Monitor app (pre installed). Activity Monitor is a built-in utility on macOS that shows the processes that are running on a Mac so users can get an idea about how they affect a Mac’s activity and performance. You can open the utility via Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor, or do a quick Spotlight search to launch the app. To figure out what is to blame for the increase in your MacBook Pro’s temperature, simply click the CPU column, which will sort all the apps and processes. Now pay attention to the percentage. If an app is using close to 80% of the CPU, it’s for sure the culprit. Feel free to double-click on it and hit “Quit.” If the app becomes unresponsive, try Force Quit.

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[Edited by Moderator]