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I'd like to be able to view my cpu and memory usage in real time. Not as a desktop widget or window application, but as a widget in the menu bar. Is this possible?

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3 Answers

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iStat Menus has the functionality you are asking for. While iStat Menus 3 is available for $16, the older version 2 was released for free and can still be found as a download on third-party sites.

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+1 I really like this one. can customize how much is shown and it seems to perform very well. I may actually buy it. – sunpech Sep 8 '10 at 11:27
I also like it and I still use the old free version. What I don't like is that it invites you to upgrade without informing you that it costs money afterwards. – robcast Sep 9 '10 at 10:16
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I use MenuMeters for this functionality, and have a hard time living without it. How do other people know when their web browser is finally done downloading a page, or YouTube stalled out, or iPhoto still working, or ...?

MenuMeters is freeware, but well worth the donation.

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I wasn't able to get this to work. After unzipping, running installer, and logging out/in, it doesn't appear on the menubar. – sunpech Sep 8 '10 at 11:28
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@sunpech: Did you enable them from the Menu Meters Preference Pane? By default they don't enable until you say you want them. – Chealion Sep 8 '10 at 16:06
What Chealion said: Did you go to the MenuMeters pref pane (at the bottom, in the "Other" category in System Preferences) to turn on the meters you'd like? – khedron Sep 10 '10 at 6:36
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I love MenuMeters. I'd vote it up, but I'm out of votes for today. :-( – daviesgeek Oct 19 '11 at 19:01
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Or you can try some geeklets from the internet (or make one yourself) on Geektool. I find it more customizable than menu bar apps, and prettier when I get to use the fonts and sizes I like.

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I did that! I had a nice weather.com geeklet on my desktop. And then I upgraded to Mountain Lion, and the geektool is failing for mysterious reasons, and I have to debug it. :-/ – khedron Nov 8 '12 at 19:38

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