Monitoring the CPU temperature on your Mac can be crucial for ensuring optimal performance and longevity of your hardware. One tool that can help you achieve this is osx-cpu-temp, a simple command-line utility designed for macOS.

In this article, we will walk you through the process of installing and using osx-cpu-temp to monitor your Mac's CPU temperature.

Step 1: Install Homebrew

Homebrew is a popular package manager for macOS that simplifies the installation of software. If you haven't installed Homebrew yet, you can do so by opening the Terminal and entering the following command:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Step 2: Install osx-cpu-temp

Once Homebrew is installed, you can use it to install osx-cpu-temp. Enter the following command in the Terminal:

brew install osx-cpu-temp

Step 3: Check CPU Temperature

After the installation is complete, you can check your CPU temperature by simply typing:

osx-cpu-temp

This command will output the current temperature of your CPU.

Step 4: Automate Temperature Monitoring

If you want to monitor your CPU temperature continuously, you can create a simple script to display the temperature at regular intervals. Here's a sample script:

#!/bin/bash

while true; do
  osx-cpu-temp
  sleep 5
done

Save this script as monitor_temp.sh and make it executable:

chmod +x monitor_temp.sh

You can then run the script:

./monitor_temp.sh

This will display the CPU temperature every 5 seconds.

Step 5: Integrate with macOS Notifications

For a more user-friendly experience, you can integrate CPU temperature monitoring with macOS notifications using terminal-notifier. First, install terminal-notifier:

brew install terminal-notifier

Then, modify your script to include notifications:

#!/bin/bash

while true; do
  TEMP=$(osx-cpu-temp)
  terminal-notifier -message "$TEMP" -title "CPU Temperature"
  sleep 60
done

This script will display a macOS notification with the CPU temperature every minute.

Conclusion

Monitoring your CPU temperature on macOS is straightforward with osx-cpu-temp. By following the steps outlined above, you can ensure your Mac runs smoothly and efficiently.