operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s, a task manager is a

system monitor A system monitor is a Computer hardware, hardware or software component used to monitor system resources and performance in a computer system. Among the management issues regarding use of system monitoring tools are resource usage and privacy. ...

program Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

used to provide information about the processes and

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

running on a

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

, as well as the general status of the computer. Some implementations can also be used to terminate processes and applications, as well as change the processes'

scheduling priority In computing, scheduling is the action of assigning ''resources'' to perform ''tasks''. The ''resources'' may be processors, network links or expansion cards. The ''tasks'' may be threads, processes or data flows. The scheduling activity is c ...

. In some environments, users can access a task manager with the

Control-Alt-Delete Control-Alt-Delete (often abbreviated to Ctrl+Alt+Del, also known as the "three-finger salute" or "Security Keys") is a computer keyboard command on IBM PC compatible computers, invoked by pressing the Delete key while holding the Control and ...

keyboard shortcut computing, a keyboard shortcut also known as hotkey is a series of one or several keys to quickly invoke a software program or perform a preprogrammed action. This action may be part of the standard functionality of the operating system or ...

. Task managers can display running services ( processes) as well as those that were stopped. They can display information about the services, including their

process identifier In computing, the process identifier (a.k.a. process ID or PID) is a number used by most operating system kernels—such as those of Unix, macOS and Windows—to uniquely identify an active process. This number may be used as a parameter in various ...

and

group identifier In Unix-like systems, multiple users can be put into ''groups''. POSIX and conventional Unix file system permissions are organized into three classes, ''user'', ''group'', and ''others''. The use of groups allows additional abilities to be delega ...

Common task managers

* Activity Monitor, included in macOS * Conky, for the X Window System *

htop htop is an interactive system-monitor process-viewer and process-manager. It is designed as an alternative to the Unix program top. System monitor It shows a frequently updated list of the processes running on a computer, normally ordered by ...

, for the Unix shell *

KDE System Guard KDE System Guard, also known as KSysGuard, is the task manager and performance monitor for the KDE platform on Unix-like systems. It can monitor both local and remote hosts, accomplished via running ksysguardd on the remote host, and having the ...

, included in KDE *

nmon nmon (''Nigel's Monitor'') is a computer performance system monitor tool for the AIX and Linux operating systems. The nmon tool has two modes a) displays the performance stats on-screen in a condensed format or b) the same stats are saved to a co ...

, for Linux and AIX * ps, for the Unix shell *

Task Manager In operating systems, a task manager is a system monitor program used to provide information about the processes and applications running on a computer, as well as the general status of the computer. Some implementations can also be used to t ...

, included in Windows *

tasklist In computing, tasklist is a command available in Microsoft Windows and in the AROS shell. It is equivalent to the ps command in Unix and Unix-like operating systems and can also be compared with the Windows task manager ( taskmgr). Windows NT ...

, for DOS *

top A spinning top, or simply a top, is a toy with a squat body and a sharp point at the bottom, designed to be spun on its vertical axis, balancing on the tip due to the gyroscopic effect. Once set in motion, a top will usually wobble for a few ...

, for the Unix shell

References

* Task managers {{compu-prog-stub