{"slug": "app-tamer", "name": "App Tamer", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.699, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2026-01-16", "latest": "2026-10-18", "why": "I also highly recommend App Tamer (no affiliation). It lets you jail background apps at 10% cpu or whatever.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I also highly recommend App Tamer (no affiliation). It lets you jail background apps at 10% cpu or whatever.", "icon": true, "domain": "stclairsoft.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["App Tamer"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 802200000, "item_id": 50137500, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50137500", "by": "soulofmischief", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "figured App Tamer was still the more mature option.", "excerpt": "I'm glad I found it. Jettison looks like a nice tool as well. It's working great so far, just does what I need it to do. Fits in nicely with Stats, which I use for fan control and monitoring power consumption. I also found https://github.com/Digital-Shane/OpenTamer but figured App Tamer was still the more mature option.", "context": "", "use_case": "limit app CPU on Mac", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple ML Research: Muse Spark Open with MLX on Mac Studio"}, {"id": 760771184, "item_id": 47548199, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47548199", "by": "zackmorris", "date": "2026-03-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also highly recommend App Tamer (no affiliation). It lets you jail background apps at 10% cpu or whatever.", "excerpt": "Not to mention that WindowServer seems to take 100+% cpu since the upgrade. Also I can't paste filenames in the save file dialog in some apps. And the URL field in Safari is just weird. My computer was running so slowly that I had to minimize transparency in system preferences somewhere. I think I also turned off opening every app in its own space. And I hid the icons on the Desktop in Finder settings somehow, which ", "context": "macOS user", "use_case": "limiting background app CPU", "switched_from": "", "story": "Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)"}, {"id": 747263504, "item_id": 46703969, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46703969", "by": "thisislife2", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "rogue\" system processes, like Spotlight Indexer / Engine, that randomly demanded and hogged 100% of the CPU is now a thing of the past for me", "excerpt": "For those wanting some semblance of control over macOS system processes, consider experimenting with App Tamer ( https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/ ). I was sceptical about it but \"rogue\" system processes, like Spotlight Indexer / Engine, that randomly demanded and hogged 100% of the CPU is now a thing of the past for me, after I used App Tamer to set it to not use more than 20% of CPU resources. It can supposedly sto", "context": "macOS user", "use_case": "limiting CPU use of processes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can you slim macOS down?"}, {"id": 746416352, "item_id": 46651022, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46651022", "by": "zackmorris", "date": "2026-01-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "So I highly recommend App Tamer by St. Clair Software (no affiliation)", "excerpt": "With nobody at Apple handling the engineering problem of implementing user requests, we're stuck with what we got. So I highly recommend App Tamer by St. Clair Software (no affiliation), which lets you set how much CPU percentage each process can use: https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/index.html It does cost $14.95 USD, but it's given me my computer back for years now. I have Spotlight Indexer set to 10%, although I'm", "context": "macOS user on an older version", "use_case": "limiting per-process CPU usage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can You Disable Spotlight and Siri in macOS Tahoe?"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "zackmorris", "context": "macOS user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47548199", "date": "2026-03-27"}, {"by": "thisislife2", "context": "macOS user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46703969", "date": "2026-01-21"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["limit app cpu on mac", "limiting background app cpu", "limiting cpu use of processes", "limiting per-process cpu usage"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50118320", "title": "Apple ML Research: Muse Spark Open with MLX on Mac Studio", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47547009", "title": "Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46702411", "title": "Can you slim macOS down?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46646958", "title": "Can You Disable Spotlight and Siri in macOS Tahoe?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 802200000, "item_id": 50137500, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50137500", "by": "soulofmischief", "date": "2026-10-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "figured App Tamer was still the more mature option.", "excerpt": "I'm glad I found it. Jettison looks like a nice tool as well. It's working great so far, just does what I need it to do. Fits in nicely with Stats, which I use for fan control and monitoring power consumption. I also found https://github.com/Digital-Shane/OpenTamer but figured App Tamer was still the more mature option.", "context": "", "use_case": "limit app CPU on Mac", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple ML Research: Muse Spark Open with MLX on Mac Studio"}, {"id": 760771184, "item_id": 47548199, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47548199", "by": "zackmorris", "date": "2026-03-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I also highly recommend App Tamer (no affiliation). It lets you jail background apps at 10% cpu or whatever.", "excerpt": "Not to mention that WindowServer seems to take 100+% cpu since the upgrade. Also I can't paste filenames in the save file dialog in some apps. And the URL field in Safari is just weird. My computer was running so slowly that I had to minimize transparency in system preferences somewhere. I think I also turned off opening every app in its own space. And I hid the icons on the Desktop in Finder settings somehow, which ", "context": "macOS user", "use_case": "limiting background app CPU", "switched_from": "", "story": "Make macOS consistently bad (unironically)"}, {"id": 747263504, "item_id": 46703969, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46703969", "by": "thisislife2", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "rogue\" system processes, like Spotlight Indexer / Engine, that randomly demanded and hogged 100% of the CPU is now a thing of the past for me", "excerpt": "For those wanting some semblance of control over macOS system processes, consider experimenting with App Tamer ( https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/ ). I was sceptical about it but \"rogue\" system processes, like Spotlight Indexer / Engine, that randomly demanded and hogged 100% of the CPU is now a thing of the past for me, after I used App Tamer to set it to not use more than 20% of CPU resources. It can supposedly sto", "context": "macOS user", "use_case": "limiting CPU use of processes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can you slim macOS down?"}, {"id": 746416352, "item_id": 46651022, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46651022", "by": "zackmorris", "date": "2026-01-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "So I highly recommend App Tamer by St. Clair Software (no affiliation)", "excerpt": "With nobody at Apple handling the engineering problem of implementing user requests, we're stuck with what we got. So I highly recommend App Tamer by St. Clair Software (no affiliation), which lets you set how much CPU percentage each process can use: https://stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/index.html It does cost $14.95 USD, but it's given me my computer back for years now. I have Spotlight Indexer set to 10%, although I'm", "context": "macOS user on an older version", "use_case": "limiting per-process CPU usage", "switched_from": "", "story": "Can You Disable Spotlight and Siri in macOS Tahoe?"}]}