What load average means on a Mac, and what is high for your number of cores
Our 8 core M1 showed load averages of 2.9, 3.6 and 4.6. What the three numbers mean, why they are not percentages, and when they say the Mac is overloaded.
What do the three numbers mean?
The average number of threads that were running or ready to run, over the last 1, 5 and 15 minutes. A load of 4 on an 8 core Mac means half its cores' worth of work on average; a load of 16 means twice as much work as it can do at once, so work queues.
| Reading on our Mac | Value |
|---|---|
| Cores | 8 (M1: 4 performance, 4 efficiency) |
| Load average, 1, 5, 15 minutes | 2.94, 3.63, 4.57 |
| CPU at the same moment | 10% user, 13% system, 77% idle |
Falling from 4.57 to 2.94 says the last quarter hour was busier than the last minute.
uptime
sysctl -n hw.ncpuWhat is a high load average?
Compare it with the number of cores. Below the core count, work is not waiting. At or above it for the 15 minute figure, the Mac is consistently busy and things will feel slow. On Apple silicon the efficiency cores count too, but they do less, so a load near the core count already feels heavy.
See it live
Free Mac's System tab reads processor, memory, network and battery once a second, with the busiest processes ranked below, and every tile opens into detail. See also CPU usage in Terminal.
Related: Check CPU usage from Terminal and check disk activity.
Common questions
What is load average on a Mac?
The average number of threads running or waiting over 1, 5 and 15 minutes.
What is a good load average for a Mac?
Below the number of cores. Ours read 2.94 to 4.57 on 8 cores, busy but fine.
How do I see load average on a Mac?
Run uptime in Terminal. The last three numbers are the load averages.