Multiple Users on MacBook - is this normal?

Question

Level 1

4 points

Multiple Users on MacBook - is this normal?

I'm a new apple user, therefore do not know much about apple as I would like. So anyway, I went into my activity monitor on my MacBook and have noticed there are multiple users. I am the only person who uses this MacBook, so I would think I would be the only user listed in the activity monitor. However, under the user there are multiple dissent users listed, such as "root","_gamecontrollerid"," _netbios", "_coreaudiod", "_timed", "_cmiodalassist", "_locationd", "_fpsd", "_driverkit", "_distnote", "_assetcache","_appintalld", "_appleevnts", "_windowserver", "_nsurlsessiond", "_applepay", "_spotlight" "_rmd", "_softwareupdate", "_appleevents", "_coreaudiod" , _familycircled", and so, so many more. Most are only listed once, whereas _driverkit is there 2 or 3 times, root is there alot. _familycircled" is odd because I am to sharing my device or accounts with anyone else. I would think the family one would be if I had family cloud sharing or something like that. I mean they seem pretty normal for a computer, except for being listed as users. Should these be listed as users? If not, why are these users on my laptop? Do they needed to be removed?

Posted on Aug 28, 2023 5:32 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

6x6

Level 6

18,945 points

Aug 28, 2023 5:52 PM in response to kdswhelan

Hello kdswhelan,

You don't need to worry; this is completely normal.

In the Activity Monitor, what you are seeing are the process owners which are not users but services that are run in the background to help your Mac run properly. For instance "_windowserver" is the service that allows your Mac to display windows on your screen; "_spotlight" is te service that allows you to make quick searches in Spotlight.

Reply

Answer 2

Aug 28, 2023 9:47 PM in response to kdswhelan

macOS has a lot of pieces of code running "behind the scenes". Many of them are server processes. Most of the time, they sleep. Every now and then, when the Mac has something for them to do, they wake up and do it - then go back to sleep again until there is more work to be done.

Many macOS processes have names that end in 'd'. This is a naming convention that goes back to Unix. The 'd' stands for daemon (background process). You can guess at what some of these daemons do by looking at their names. E.g., coreaudiod has something to do with the Mac's Core Audio framework that helps to handle sound. locationd has to do with Location Services.

The fact that familycircled is running on your system does not automatically mean that Family Sharing is set up. Your copy of that daemon is probably sitting there, sleeping, doing nothing most of the time … but waiting just in case you turn on Family Sharing and it has to carry out some related background task.

Reply

Multiple Users on MacBook - is this normal?

Similar questions