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What is WindowServer in Activity Monitor

I have been running out of RAM recently and I have noticed that WindowServer has been using a lot of RAM and CPU Usage. Does anybody know what WindowServer is and how to fix this?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Mar 13, 2021 4:21 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Mar 14, 2021 10:13 AM

You have a 13-in MacBook Pro (older2019 version, Two thunderbolt ports) with only 8GB RAM and a 250GB drive running an older version of Big Sur (not fully up-to-date). That is not a lot of computer for the very demanding work you appear to be doing.


Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

Time Machine backup out-of-date - The last Time Machine backup is over 10 days old.


You appear to be running four operating systems simultaneously. You have extensions for BlueStacks and intel.haxm Android emulation, VirtualBox, and Parallels Desktop as well as MacOS. Pick ONE of VirtualBox and Parallels and remove the others. You don't need Android emulation running all the time unless you are using it all the time.


You have CleanMyMac installed. Since Mavericks, MacOS manages its own cacheing and storage far better than any third-party app can. A third-party "cleaned" Mac is a SLOW Mac. Remove that dreck, and never re-install.


You have gaming Helper programs (EA AND Steam) always running. Since your memory is small, these should be run on-demand only, and you should restart after their use to clear them from memory.


You appear to be running Chrome (and Chrome Helper renderer) notorious Resource Hogs. Stop using that and switch to FireFox or Safari, either of which are faster and less resource intensive.


OneDrive and the non-Mac-native file sync apps that were ported to the Mac consume vast amounts of resources, because they read your files non-stop, looking for up to the second changes. You should launch and run these ONLY on-demand, otherwise, they punish performance.


You have so exceeded the amount of real RAM in your Mac that it has been forced to swap 1.21GB on the drive (over a far-too-long-between-restarts 17 days period).


The only panic saved was a crash of the SIMs.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Mar 14, 2021 10:13 AM in response to MrCheeseIT09

You have a 13-in MacBook Pro (older2019 version, Two thunderbolt ports) with only 8GB RAM and a 250GB drive running an older version of Big Sur (not fully up-to-date). That is not a lot of computer for the very demanding work you appear to be doing.


Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

Time Machine backup out-of-date - The last Time Machine backup is over 10 days old.


You appear to be running four operating systems simultaneously. You have extensions for BlueStacks and intel.haxm Android emulation, VirtualBox, and Parallels Desktop as well as MacOS. Pick ONE of VirtualBox and Parallels and remove the others. You don't need Android emulation running all the time unless you are using it all the time.


You have CleanMyMac installed. Since Mavericks, MacOS manages its own cacheing and storage far better than any third-party app can. A third-party "cleaned" Mac is a SLOW Mac. Remove that dreck, and never re-install.


You have gaming Helper programs (EA AND Steam) always running. Since your memory is small, these should be run on-demand only, and you should restart after their use to clear them from memory.


You appear to be running Chrome (and Chrome Helper renderer) notorious Resource Hogs. Stop using that and switch to FireFox or Safari, either of which are faster and less resource intensive.


OneDrive and the non-Mac-native file sync apps that were ported to the Mac consume vast amounts of resources, because they read your files non-stop, looking for up to the second changes. You should launch and run these ONLY on-demand, otherwise, they punish performance.


You have so exceeded the amount of real RAM in your Mac that it has been forced to swap 1.21GB on the drive (over a far-too-long-between-restarts 17 days period).


The only panic saved was a crash of the SIMs.

Mar 13, 2021 4:43 PM in response to MrCheeseIT09

WindowServer is the task that makes sure the right stuff is in every window, manages multiple windows in multiple positions on the screen, possibly overlapping or not, and generally manages all issues related to drawing the stuff on the screen.


¿what MacBook Pro 13-in by year, early mid late, and how much RAM?


¿what version MacOS?

What is WindowServer in Activity Monitor

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