macOS utility app

Activity Monitor tells you what happened.
PIDKill fixes it.

Same macOS APIs. Signed and notarized by Apple.

Auto-monitor and kill unwanted processes in the background. Set your targets once — PIDKill handles the rest.

Targets

Set & Forget.

Add process names, toggle fuzzy match, choose scan frequency. PIDKill auto-kills them in the background. Kill log shows every action with timestamps.

Browse All

See Everything Running.

All processes sorted by memory. Filter by ALL / SYS / 3RD to separate system daemons from user apps. Click + to add any process to targets.

Inspect

I/O Monitor.

See which process is hitting your disk or network the hardest — ranked by speed. macOS kernel tracks these numbers; PIDKill just reads them. Record and replay to find the spike.

Uninstall

Clean Removal.

Completely remove Apps, Homebrew, npm, pip packages. Scans ~/Library/ for residual files. Move to Trash for safe recovery.

See it in action

One app. Every angle.

Set Targets. Auto Kill.

Add processes by name with fuzzy or exact match. PIDKill continuously scans and kills them as they respawn. Toggle individual targets on/off. Kill log tracks every action.

Auto Scan Fuzzy Match Kill Log

Every Process. One View.

All running processes sorted by memory usage. Filter by ALL / SYS / 3RD to instantly separate system daemons from user apps. Click + to add any process to your kill targets.

Memory Sort SYS / 3RD Filter One-Click Add

I/O Monitor. Record. Replay.

See which process is reading/writing your disk the fastest, or sending/receiving the most network data — ranked by speed (KB/s). macOS kernel already tracks these numbers for every process. PIDKill just asks the kernel for them — never reads your files or inspects network content. Hit REC to capture over time, replay to find the spike.

Disk I/O Network I/O Record & Replay

Remove Apps. Clean Residuals.

Scan Apps, Homebrew, npm, pip packages. See every residual file — Application Support, Preferences, Caches. Select and move to Trash for safe recovery.

App Removal Residual Scan Safe Trash

Under the hood

Built on macOS.
Verified by Apple.

PIDKill uses the exact same system APIs as Activity Monitor. No hacks, no workarounds — just automation on top of macOS’s own process management.

01 How It’s Made

Swift

Apple’s own programming language

→

AppKit

Apple’s official toolkit, same as Activity Monitor

→

Signed

Right-click PIDKill.app → Get Info to verify

→

Notarized

macOS blocks unverified apps — PIDKill opens clean

Doesn’t read your files — check in System Settings → Privacy Doesn’t monitor your network traffic — verify in Activity Monitor → Network No special permissions — you’d see a popup if it tried

02 How It Works

You

Pick the processes you want gone

→

Scan

Check what’s running — same list as Activity Monitor

→

Match

Find your targets by name

→

Quit

Same as Force Quit in Activity Monitor

→

Gone

Process removed instantly

Same method as right-click → Force Quit No admin password for your own processes — only asks when killing system ones System processes labeled & protected from accidental kills

Activity Monitor gives you the controls.
PIDKill remembers how you use them.

Auto Scan & Batch Kill

Set targets once. PIDKill continuously scans and kills matching processes as they appear. One click clears all. No manual hunting.

SYS / 3RD Safety Labels

Every process is labeled as system or third-party. You always see exactly what you’re killing — and what you shouldn’t touch.

Persistent Target Memory

Your kill list survives reboots. Launch at login and problem processes stay dead. No daily re-configuration.

I/O Inspect & Record

macOS kernel tracks every process’s read/write/send/receive bytes. PIDKill asks the kernel for those numbers and ranks them by speed. Never touches your files or network content.

Real scenarios

Sound familiar?

iOS Developer

Xcode Residuals

Xcode crashed, but CoreSimulatorService and a few related processes are still eating memory. Opening Activity Monitor, searching, killing them one by one — tedious.

PIDKill: Add "Simulator" to targets. One click clears all residuals. SYS/3RD labels prevent accidental kills.

Full-Stack Engineer

Chrome Memory Hogs

Fans spinning. Dozens of Chrome Helper processes in Activity Monitor. Force-quit Chrome loses all your tabs. But which helpers are safe to kill?

PIDKill: Browse all Chrome helpers sorted by memory. Kill the heavy ones, keep your tabs alive.

Backend / DevOps

Docker Ghost Processes

docker-compose down finished, but port 8080 is still in use. A node process didn't exit cleanly. Maybe a redis-server too. Happens more often than you'd like.

PIDKill: Add docker, node, redis to scan list. See all residuals in one view, clear with one click.

UI/UX Designer

Adobe Background Daemons

You quit Photoshop but Adobe daemons keep running — CCXProcess, AdobeIPCBroker, CoreSync. Kill one in Activity Monitor, another respawns it.

PIDKill: Monitor all Adobe processes. Auto-scan kills them as they respawn. They stay dead.

Power User

Respawning Processes

Some processes restart seconds after you kill them. Creative Cloud, update agents, sync daemons — they have watchdogs that bring them right back.

PIDKill: Auto-scan every 3–60 seconds. Process respawns? PIDKill kills it again. Automatically. Persistently.

Activity Monitor tells you what happened. PIDKill fixes it.