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Legendary Windows developer codes Task Manager for the Mac, says Apple’s ‘Activity Monitor blows’ — Microsoft gave original Windows Task Manager dev permission to reference Windows XP source code
Legendary Windows developer Dave W. Plummer has shared details and screenshots of a version of Task Manager for Apple Mac computers. Apple computer users currently have Activity Monitor for peeking at CPU activity, memory usage, as well as closing apps and processes, by default. However, “Activity Monitor blows,” asserts Plummer, in response to people asking why he would port the classic Windows utility to the fruity computer.
Hey look, it's your old friend Task Manager... on the Mac! pic.twitter.com/JYfH6Ry3sBJuly 28, 2026
Preempting questions from his social media followers, Plummer mused over the optics of releasing Task Manager for Mac, due to his Microsoft development history. In case you missed it, Plummer was the original dev behind Windows Task Manager when it debuted as a lean and mean 80KB accessory. He’s also recently reimagined this essential Windows system tool in a retro-futuristic Atari Tempest remix.
Back in the world of Macs, and looking to the side from the world of PCs, there is indeed a case for a better task manager or activity monitor for Apple computers. The Windows utility has more features under the hood, giving it a far greater scope and utility value (task priorities, startup management, services control, and more). We haven’t tried the new Mac version of Task Manager; it hasn’t been released at the time of writing, but if it can decant some of the Windows features over to the Apple computing platform, it may be an attractive addition.
Plummer says the utility is currently in beta, and he intends to “throw it up on the App Store… (for free in Beta, because the first taste is always free).” There’s also, admittedly, a chance he will get bored with tinkering with it and release the source for others to continue with.
We already mentioned the optics over a seasoned Windows dev coding / porting staple Microsoft OS code to Apple Macs, but Plummer has addressed queries about this in further posts today. In this Tweet, the dev asserts that “Microsoft very graciously sent me the source code to XP Task Manager along with permission to share/demo it.” Moreover, the project is written in Swift and uses no original code, and Plummer says he has no post-Windows XP code to tap into, either.
Meanwhile, development continues apace, with Plummer providing insight into some drive meter activity coding he’s currently working on. The dev is finessing drive activity for Task Manager for the Mac right now and pondering over the flickery visuals resulting from “drawing instantaneous drive activity at 60fps.”
Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.
Any chance he can port Windows Explorer too so I can finally bin off Apple's ironically named 'Finder' (which quite often, doesn't) with its lack of file path bar, and generally inconsistent behavior?
