Spare

See what's using your Mac. A free, open-source menu bar app that shows CPU and memory use by the apps, projects, and AI agents you actually recognize, and helps you decide what's safe to close.

Download Spare 0.19.0 · Website · All releases

Free and MIT licensed. No account, no subscription, and nothing leaves your Mac.

Requirements

• An Apple-silicon Mac (M1 or later). Intel Macs aren't supported.
• macOS 14 Sonoma or later.

Install

1. Download the latest DMG.
2. Open it and drag Spare into your Applications folder.
3. Open Spare from Applications or Spotlight. Releases are signed and notarized by Apple; if macOS asks whether you're sure you want to open an app downloaded from the internet, choose Open.

Or install with Homebrew:

brew install --cask coreyhaines31/tap/spare

Or without Homebrew, from Terminal:

curl -fsSL -o /tmp/Spare.dmg "$(curl -fsSL https://api.github.com/repos/coreyhaines31/spare/releases/latest | grep -o 'https://[^"]*-arm64\.dmg' | head -1)" && hdiutil attach -nobrowse -quiet /tmp/Spare.dmg -mountpoint /tmp/spare-dmg && ditto /tmp/spare-dmg/Spare.app /Applications/Spare.app && hdiutil detach -quiet /tmp/spare-dmg && open /Applications/Spare.app

Install with an AI coding agent

Paste this into Claude Code, Codex, or another coding agent:

Install Spare, the free open-source macOS menu bar app from https://github.com/coreyhaines31/spare.
1. Check this Mac is Apple silicon (`uname -m` prints arm64) on macOS 14 or later (`sw_vers -productVersion`). If not, stop and tell me Spare isn't supported.
2. If /Applications/Spare.app already exists, Spare is installed and updates itself; skip to step 5.
3. If Homebrew is installed, run: brew install --cask coreyhaines31/tap/spare
4. Otherwise, download the -arm64.dmg asset from the latest release at https://github.com/coreyhaines31/spare/releases/latest, mount it, copy Spare.app into /Applications, and unmount it.
5. Open Spare with: open /Applications/Spare.app
6. If `command -v spare` finds nothing, link Spare's command-line tool: ln -sf /Applications/Spare.app/Contents/MacOS/spare-cli /opt/homebrew/bin/spare (use /usr/local/bin/spare with sudo if /opt/homebrew/bin doesn't exist).
7. Run `spare status` to confirm it works, then tell me to look for the gauge icon in my menu bar. Spare has no Dock icon.

Spare updates itself. When a new version is out it offers to install it, or you can choose Check for Updates… from the gear menu.

First launch

Spare is a menu bar app, so it has no Dock icon and no app window by default. When it opens, look for the gauge icon in the top-right of your menu bar. Spare opens its panel there each time it launches.

• Click the gauge any time to open or close Spare.
• Can't see the icon? See Troubleshooting. On MacBooks with a notch, a full menu bar can hide it.
• Prefer a window? Choose Open in a window from the gear menu, or open Spare again from Applications.
• Want numbers in the menu bar? Choose Show in Menu Bar from the gear menu and pick any of CPU, GPU, Memory, and Startup disk. Each appears as a percentage next to the gauge. All are off by default. While only a MacBook's own screen is in use, Spare shows just the first reading so it fits beside the notch, and shows them all again when you connect a display. Turn off Just the first when only the laptop screen is in use in the same menu to always show every reading.

The first readings appear within a few seconds. Spare doesn't need any permissions to start monitoring. A few optional features ask for one when you turn them on:

Feature	Permission	When it's asked
Warn about sustained pressure	Notifications	When you turn the warning on in the gear menu
Launch at login	Login Items	On by default the first time you open Spare from Applications; turn it off in the gear menu
Open Chrome's Task Manager	Accessibility	Only when you click that button; used only to choose that menu item

A quick tour

The overview. The top shows how hard your Mac is working: CPU in use, with how much is still available, and macOS memory pressure (green Normal, orange Warning, red Critical). Below it, everything using resources is grouped into things you recognize, largest first.

• Apps appear with all their helper processes counted together, so Chrome is one line instead of 50.
• Projects are local dev servers and tools grouped by folder, with the command and port, like website · port 3000 · next dev.
• Agents such as Claude Code, Codex, Aider, Ollama, and OpenCode are grouped by the folder they're working in. Each shows whether it's mid-task, so you don't close one in the middle of a reply: Claude Code reports Working or Waiting for you itself, and other agents show Active or Quiet from their CPU use in the last 10 seconds.
• macOS processes like WindowServer and mds_stores are labeled with a plain explanation and are never offered for stopping.

Use the filters, search by name, folder, or port, and sort by memory or CPU.

Hints in the list. An orange trend arrow means an app's memory keeps climbing. Not used in 5h marks apps you've left open but haven't used, and the Not used lately section offers to quit them.

Details. Click any row to see what it is, what closing it would affect, and its memory history. For browsers and Electron apps, Inside breaks the app into tabs and sites, extensions, graphics, and network processes. You can end a single heavy tab or extension process without quitting the whole app. Sessions opened by browser automation show what opened them, and leftover ones can be closed together.

以上為 README 的開頭部分。其餘內容請閱讀原文。 檢視完整 README ↗