witr
“Why is this running?” — looks up an unfamiliar process and tells you what it belongs to.
Homebrew formula Direct download
What it does
Activity Monitor is full of processes with names that explain nothing. witr takes a process name or PID and reports what it is, which package or application owns it, and whether it is an Apple system component or something installed.
witr mdworker_shared
witr 4821Why that helps
It shortens the loop between “an unknown process is using 40% CPU” and knowing whether it is a system indexer doing its job, a Homebrew service, or something that should not be there at all. For the last case, KnockKnock answers the follow-up question of what installed it persistently.
Alternative to
| Alternative | Type | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Activity Monitor | Built in | Select a process and inspect it |
| Sloth | Open source | A free GUI over lsof, showing what a process has open |
ps, lsof and launchctl list | Built in | The underlying answers, if you know what to ask |
| KnockKnock | Open source | For the narrower question of what installed a process persistently |
Install
brew install witr