macReports

Apple iOS Mac OS X Reports , Help and News

  • How to
  • News
  • Not working?
  • Tips and Tricks
  • Guides
You are here: Home / Tips and Tricks / Activity Monitor Columns Are Missing, Fix

Activity Monitor Columns Are Missing, Fix

Last updated on October 14, 2019 By Serhat Kurt 85 Comments

Activity Monitor is one of those essential applications that I use frequently. Activity Monitor has a five-category tabs at the top of the Activity Monitor window: CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, Network, and Cache. Each of these main categories includes subcategories called columns.

Activity Monitor Columns

Sometime you may realize that some or all of the columns items are disappeared. Does Activity Monitor not show any columns? If you are having this problem, this short article explains how you can bring back the column items in the Activity Monitor app.

Please try each step one at a time until you resolve your issue.

  1. Let us first state the obvious. As you probably know, you can add or remove columns by choosing View > Columns from the menu bar. Are columns selected? If not, select them and this will fix the issue.
  2. Still, columns are missing? We will delete the Activity Monitor app preferences. Here is how:
    1. First, quit the Activity Monitor app if it is running
    2. Go to the Finder of Mac OS
    3. Click the Go menu
    4. Click the Go To Folder menu (shurtcut: Command+Shift+G)Go To Folder
    5. This will open a window. In this window, enter the following command and click Go.
    6. ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ActivityMonitor.plistActivity Monitor Preferences
    7. This will open the Preferences window with com.apple.ActivityMonitor.plist selected. com.apple.ActivityMonitor.plist
    8. Delete this file by moving it to the Trash
    9. Now open Activity Monitor and check if columns are there.

See also: Mac Spotlight Search Not Working? 

Filed Under: Tips and Tricks Tagged With: Activity Monitor

Comments

  1. Lar says

    April 14, 2021 at 3:16 am

    Worked perfectly. Thanks. It was driving me nuts. I knew it was in my profile because another user account on this machine has the default settings.

    Reply
  2. Jock says

    February 26, 2021 at 7:24 pm

    Worked. Thank you!

    Reply
  3. Duncan Michael-MacGregor says

    February 25, 2021 at 1:13 pm

    Worked perfectly, thank you!

    Reply
  4. robert f. moon says

    February 14, 2021 at 8:18 pm

    what does one do when the search for that plist file comes up with a”Cannot Be Found” result.

    Reply
  5. Charles Brown says

    January 26, 2021 at 2:48 am

    I used the terminal approach as I am often doing things in the termiinal. Allow me to be the first to tip my hat to you in 2021. Well done, sir/madam!

    Reply
  6. Scott Wilson says

    December 11, 2020 at 12:12 pm

    Works like a champ. Thank you!

    Reply
  7. TCJ says

    November 30, 2020 at 8:57 pm

    Perfect! Thanks – not having the columns was driving me up the wall

    Reply
  8. Alan Gilbert says

    November 18, 2020 at 8:51 am

    Please help, this only works once. Every time the MAC sleeps it goes back. I ca not delete the file as it says “Permission denied”
    Any ideas, thanks very much

    Reply
    • joef says

      December 11, 2020 at 10:22 am

      Be sure to quit the monitor first with command q or use the menu to quit. Clicking the red point to close is not enough.
      If that does not help,
      use afterwards the terminal and remove as root with the command
      sudo rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.ActivityMonitor.plist

      Reply
  9. chuck says

    November 15, 2020 at 10:17 pm

    it does this every time i get a major OS update.

    Apple should add in the update to clear that file every time.

    Chuck

    Reply
  10. Nate says

    October 19, 2020 at 11:16 am

    Brilliant, thank you – it worked!

    Reply
  11. Anon says

    October 13, 2020 at 9:51 pm

    Worked, thanks a lot!

    Reply
  12. joe dzurinda says

    October 13, 2020 at 7:36 pm

    Thank you! I was so disgusted with the bugs in Catalina I started looking at getting away from Apple and going back to Windows. Activity Monitor was horrible, nothing worked. Several fixes had me looking for that plist which was not there.

    Apple needs to do a much better job on software.

    Reply
  13. John says

    October 12, 2020 at 6:45 pm

    Worked for me too, thank you!

    Reply
  14. J3rry says

    October 10, 2020 at 10:05 pm

    Thank you! Did bring back my columns!

    Reply
  15. Jeanne Macauley says

    October 9, 2020 at 3:11 am

    Thanks! Just updated to Catalina and have had to find solutions to a number of things. This was one, and your instructions worked well!

    Reply
  16. OlivierJM says

    October 8, 2020 at 10:01 am

    Deleting the .plist file worked, thanks a lot.

    Reply
  17. Kejal says

    October 7, 2020 at 9:58 am

    Thank you so much I m long time tired facing this issue finally solve it.

    Reply
  18. Paul Sawicki says

    September 24, 2020 at 12:53 am

    Thanks! Deleting .plist did the trick.

    Reply
  19. vian says

    September 17, 2020 at 6:24 am

    Thank you! Deleting preference file solved my case.

    Reply
« Older Comments

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Got a tip for us? Email us.

Latest Posts

Calendar Shows Wrong Week, Day, or Date

Passwords on Safari: The Spinning Wheel – How to Fix the Lag

iPhone Bluetooth Keeps Disconnecting and Reconnecting? How to Fix

What to Do if HBO Max isn’t Working on your Apple TV

Can’t Sign in to Google Account on Safari in iOS and iPadOS

Pages

  • About macReports
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Use

Tags

AirPods Apple Car Apple Card Apple Company Apple ID Apple Music Apple Pay Apple TV Apple Watch Apps App Store Bluetooth Calendar Catalina FaceTime iCloud iMessage iMessages iMovie iOS iOS 14 iPad iPhone iTunes Keyboard Mac Mac Battery MacBook macOS macOS Big Sur Mail Mail App Messages Music Notifications Pages PDF Photos Safari screenshot Siri Update Wi-Fi Windows YouTube

Search macReports

Categories:

  • Guides
  • How to
  • News
  • Not working?
  • Tips and Tricks

About macReports:

This website is founded by Serhat Kurt. He worked as a Senior Technology Director. He holds a doctoral degree (or doctorate) from the University of Illinois at Urbana / Champaign and a master’s degree from Purdue University.

Stacey Butler

Stacey Butler is a tech writer at macReports covering news, how-tos, and user guides. She is a longtime Mac and iPhone user and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

 

This website is not affiliated with Apple.

Copyright © 2021 / macReports

This website uses cookies. By navigating around this site you consent to cookies being stored on your machine.Accept