What is com.apple.WebKit.WebContent on a Mac, and which app does it belong to?
WebKit processes run web pages for Safari, Mail and any app with a web view. One used 138 MB on our Mac. How to find the app or tab behind a busy one.
What are the WebKit processes?
WebKit is the engine Safari uses, and many other apps use it to show web content: Mail, the App Store, help windows, and third party apps with a built in web view. Each page runs in its own com.apple.WebKit.WebContent process, with com.apple.WebKit.GPU for drawing and com.apple.WebKit.Networking for downloads. They live inside /System/Library/Frameworks/WebKit.framework.
| Process on our Mac | Memory |
|---|---|
| com.apple.WebKit.WebContent | 138 MB |
| com.apple.WebKit.GPU | 18 MB |
| com.apple.WebKit.Networking | 7 MB |
Which app or tab is it?
In Activity Monitor, View, All Processes, Hierarchically shows each WebKit process under the app that started it. In Safari, a busy tab's process is named after the site in Activity Monitor. Closing that tab, or quitting that app, ends it.
Why is it using so much CPU or memory?
The page is doing work: video, animations, ads, a web app left open for days. That is the page's cost, not WebKit's. Our 138 MB process had been running for 37 minutes at no CPU, an idle page holding its memory.
See it live
Free Mac's System tab ranks every process by processor use and energy impact, once a second, and marks the ones macOS will not let you quit as protected. See also WindowServer high CPU and Safari taking up space.
Related: FindMyWidgetPeople and symptomsd.
Common questions
What is com.apple.WebKit.WebContent?
A process running one web page for Safari, Mail or any app with a built in web view.
Why is com.apple.WebKit.WebContent using high CPU?
The page it runs is busy: video, animation or a web app. Close the tab or quit the app that owns it.
How do I find which app a WebKit process belongs to?
In Activity Monitor choose View, All Processes, Hierarchically, and look at its parent.