Monitoring Internet Data Usage with Activity Monitor

Question

Monitoring Internet Data Usage with Activity Monitor

Hi,

So recently, my internet usage has skyrocketed to on the worst days, 98GB a day. I don't understand how this is possible. I recently looked on the activity monitor and went to network and saw that data sent this morning in 140.8 GB alone, i have only been using the internet for two hours. I restarted my computer before using it so this has just happened in 2 hours. It said I was using 12.5MB/s when I am literally just typing this, I have no other internet applications open except Chrome and I am not downloading or streaming anything. In fact I never do. Can someone explain to me what the above figures mean in terms of internet usage, and is there a way I can monitor what applications/services are using what data? I am at 380GB out of 500GB and most months my family and I hardly use 200GB. No-one else seems to have this figure of 140.8GB of data received so I assume it must be me. I have reset the wi-fi password so it cannot be a third-party accessing the router. Is it possible I downloaded something or there is a background task that has been running the past week to use such an absurd amount of data?

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)

Posted on May 5, 2017 4:03 PM

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Answer 1

May 6, 2017 9:50 PM in response to etresoft

Ok so,

this morning, I used 30GB alone just by leaving the internet on overnight by mistake, my computer was not running anything, I used a terminal command to show me which processes are using the internet, perhaps you could tell me if something does not look right. I may have to take this into apple because 30GB overnight without ANYTHING on is absurd. It comes in spikes as well take a look at this. It seems to spike, sometimes Im using normal amount, sometimes Im not. .

Here is the log. (I used this command, lsof -P -i -n | cut -f 1 -d " " | uniq)

COMMAND

loginwind

parsecd

sharingd

assistant

SpotifyWe

WiFiAgent

Bandwidth

identitys

SystemUIS

UserEvent

WiFiProxy

Google

The Bandwidth is an app I downloaded AFTER this problem started happening to monitor how much data I was using.

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Answer 2

May 7, 2017 5:36 PM in response to etresoft

While typing this it has gone up to 6GB received. Is there a way I can completely uninstall this? I will attend the IT department in the company and ask them as well because it clearly seems to be some program installed due to the enterprise management system installed on our computers when we join.

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Answer 3

etresoft

Level 9

56,320 points

May 5, 2017 4:42 PM in response to ExpertWitness

Hello ExpertWitness,

Did you make any changes at around the time this started?

You can certainly open Activity Monitor and go to the Network tab, and sort by either Sent or Received bytes. Hopefully that will reveal something. It is possible it will report some low-level system tool too. That will require more investigation.

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Answer 4

May 5, 2017 7:35 PM in response to etresoft

I have recently discovered that the problem is my macbook air's alone. I downloaded Bandwithx which displays used data very clearly, I downloaded it onto my mac and my sisters. To load google, it used 6MB, and to watch a 5 minute youtube video in 720hd it used 900MB. Whereas for the same tasks on my sisters, it used around 70MB. I updated my mac to the most recent version and that has not solved the issue. I have checked the activity monity and it seems to spike, it was flat perfectly normal using normal amounts then spiked and went from 12MB used when I left it, to 3.2GB when I came back DURING WHICH TIME THE LID WAS SHUT. I would love to know if there is a way that I can tell which application is using it. Perhaps a terminal command? Or do I have to contact support, because this is clearly on apples end, not telstras.

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Answer 5

etresoft

Level 9

56,320 points

May 6, 2017 9:17 PM in response to ExpertWitness

Hello again ExpertWitness,

So which of these machines has the problem? Google @ 6MB and 720hd @ 900 MB sounds accurate. 70 MB seems completely wrong.

With Activity Monitor, you can see exactly what process is consuming the most of whatever resource you are looking at. In the network tab, click Send Bytes until the arrow is pointed down next to it. Which processes are at the top of the list?

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Answer 6

etresoft

Level 9

56,320 points

May 7, 2017 5:25 AM in response to ExpertWitness

Hello again ExpertWitness,

That Terminal command isn't useful I'm afraid.

It would be better to take a screenshot of the entire Activity Monitor window, in the Network tab, sorted by Bytes Sent. And then do another one sorted by Bytes received. This will clearly show which processes are using this bandwidth.

jamf is an enterprise management system. But that may not have anything to do with the problem. If you look at any once process at any point in time, they may be using data at a very high rate, like 15MB a second. But you are literally looking at a single point in time, far less than a second. You have to look for accumulated totals and that is what the Activity Monitor window will show.

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Answer 7

etresoft

Level 9

56,320 points

May 7, 2017 6:23 PM in response to ExpertWitness

This is definitely something the IT department should handle. This is professional software so it should be relatively easy to uninstall. But if you uninstall it, then you would have the capabilities of whatever you need it for. Obviously there is a reason you have it. I'm not sure what it is doing though. There should be a log file for software like that and it may describe what it is doing. But this is something you should ask that IT department about.

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Answer 8

May 6, 2017 10:11 PM in response to ExpertWitness

Also, It just spiked again and an application called jamf was receiving 15MB a second. Any idea what this is and how to uninstall?

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