How to see everything running on your Mac, even with no Dock icon

8 October 2026 · 6 min read

The Dock shows only part of the picture. To see everything running on your Mac, use four views in order: the Dock and Command-Tab for ordinary apps, the Force Quit window for a quick list, Activity Monitor for every process, and one Terminal command that sorts running apps into those with a Dock icon and those without.

Why the Dock is not the whole list

macOS runs three kinds of software at once, and only one kind shows in the Dock.

• Ordinary apps. They have a Dock icon, their own menus when they are in front, and a place in the Command-Tab switcher.
• Apps with no Dock icon. Menu bar apps and many helpers are built this way. They can show windows and put an icon at the top of the screen, but they normally stay out of the Dock and out of Command-Tab.
• Background-only processes. No windows, no icon, nothing to click. Sync agents and updaters are typical.

So “what is running” has three answers, depending on which kind you mean. The steps below go from the narrowest view to the widest.

Start with the Dock and Command-Tab

1. Look for the dot under each Dock icon. A dot means the app is open, even if it has no windows on screen.
2. If you see no dots at all, open System Settings, choose Desktop & Dock, and turn on “Show indicators for open applications.”
3. Hold Command and press Tab. The row of icons is every ordinary app that is open, most recently used first. While still holding Command, press Q to quit the highlighted app or H to hide it.

This covers the first kind only. An app that closed its last window is often still here with a dot, which is the usual reason a Mac has more open than its owner thinks.

Use the Force Quit window for a plain list

Press Option-Command-Escape, or open the Apple menu and choose Force Quit. A compact window lists the ordinary apps that are running, and marks any that has stopped responding.

It is the quickest way to get a readable list, and you do not have to force quit anything to use it. Close the window when you have read it. Like the Dock, it leaves out menu bar apps and background processes.

See every process in Activity Monitor

Activity Monitor is the complete view. Open it from Applications, then Utilities, or press Command-Space and type its name.

1. Open the View menu. “Windowed Processes” narrows the list to things with a window. “My Processes” shows everything running under your account. “All Processes” adds what macOS runs for itself.
2. Click the Process Name column to sort by name, or type in the search field at the top right to find one item.
3. Select a row and click the Info button in the toolbar. The window that opens names the parent process, and its Open Files and Ports tab shows where the process lives on disk. That path usually names the app it belongs to.
4. Click the CPU or Memory tab and sort by the first column of figures to see what is busy, as opposed to merely present.

“All Processes” is a long list on any Mac, and most of it is macOS doing its job. A name you do not recognize is not a problem by itself. Use the path from step 3 before you decide anything, and do not quit system processes to tidy up. macOS restarts most of them, and the others are there for a reason.

List apps with no Dock icon from Terminal

Activity Monitor does not say which of those processes is an app without a Dock icon. Terminal does. Open Terminal and paste this:

lsappinfo list | grep -B4 'type="UIElement"' | grep -E '^ *[0-9]+\) '

Each line that comes back is the name of a running app that has an interface but no Dock icon. On most Macs the list includes pieces of macOS, such as Spotlight and Wi-Fi, along with the menu bar apps you have installed.

Change UIElement to Foreground to list the ordinary apps, or to BackgroundOnly to list the processes with no interface at all. The command only reads a list that macOS already keeps. It asks for no permission and changes nothing.

Now compare the result with System Settings, General, Login Items (the same screen is named Login Items & Extensions on newer versions of macOS). Anything in the Terminal list that you did not open today got there by starting itself, and that screen is where you switch it off. Login items on a Mac walks through the full audit.

Running is not the same as in use

A list of running apps answers “what is open.” It does not answer “what did I use,” and the two are far apart. A Mac can have twenty apps open and exactly one in front.

That difference is what Punchcard is built on. It notices which app is in front through the day, and at the closing time you set it prints a receipt: time per app for the top five lines, the rest as MISC, and a day total. An app that sat open since Monday without ever coming to the front earns no time, so the receipt is a record of what you used, not of what was running. Out of the box it records app names only, never window titles or screen contents, and it needs no macOS permissions to do it.

Its limits are worth stating. Punchcard is not a process monitor. It will not show CPU or memory, it will not list background helpers, and it will not say why something is running. Activity Monitor is the tool for that. Tracking is free and does not expire, the first two receipts are free, and printing more needs the license, $9 once.

For how macOS picks the one app that counts as in front, see How macOS decides which app is frontmost, and why it matters. If one of the running items is working harder than it should, A menu bar app is using too much CPU shows how to find which one.

Questions

Why is an app still running after I closed its window?

On a Mac, closing a window and quitting an app are separate actions. Most apps stay open with no windows until you press Command-Q or choose Quit from the app’s own menu. The dot under the Dock icon is the sign.

How do I quit an app that has no Dock icon?

Click its icon in the menu bar and look for Quit in the menu that opens, or in its settings. If it offers neither, select it in Activity Monitor, click the Stop button in the toolbar, and choose Quit. If it comes back by itself, switch it off in Login Items.

Is it bad to leave many apps open?

Usually not. macOS compresses memory that idle apps are not using, and an app doing nothing takes almost no processor time. What matters is what is busy, which the CPU and Memory tabs show, not how long the list is.

Does Command-Tab show everything?

No. It shows ordinary apps only. Menu bar apps and background processes do not appear there, which is why Activity Monitor and the Terminal command are worth knowing.