MacOS – Is it normal for 1000 threads to launch on booting up MacBook Pro

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My MacBook Pro is very slow immediately after booting up. Only after 5-6 mins have passed after booting, I am able to launch any application or use my MacBook properly. When I checked processes using "top" command on mac Terminal, I saw almost 1000 threads running on my MacBook. Is this normal ?
Attaching the screenshot of "top" command.

 Processes: 302 total, 2 running, 300 sleeping, 1020 threads                                                                                  23:19:55
Load Avg: 1.58, 1.58, 1.52  CPU usage: 9.48% user, 5.59% sys, 84.91% idle    SharedLibs: 253M resident, 63M data, 23M linkedit.
MemRegions: 26938 total, 1140M resident, 158M private, 304M shared. PhysMem: 3526M used (1011M wired), 569M unused.
VM: 1759G vsize, 1118M framework vsize, 320(0) swapins, 320(0) swapouts. Networks: packets: 51990/48M in, 45361/7234K out.
Disks: 157047/5111M read, 51916/1058M written.

PID  COMMAND      %CPU  TIME     #TH   #WQ  #PORT MEM    PURG   CMPRS  PGRP PPID STATE    BOOSTS           %CPU_ME %CPU_OTHRS UID  FAULTS   COW
720  SandboxedSer 0.0   00:00.03 2     1    47    1364K  12K    0B     720  1    sleeping  0[1]            0.00000 0.00000    501  3142     178
719  ocspd        0.0   00:00.02 2     1    30    1176K  0B     0B     719  1    sleeping *0[1]            0.00000 0.00000    0    1785     139
718  syspolicyd   0.0   00:00.09 2     1    33    3432K  44K    0B     718  1    sleeping  0[1]            0.00000 0.00000    0    3640     178
717  XprotectServ 0.0   00:00.05 2     2    44    3032K  0B     0B     717  1    sleeping  0[1]            0.00000 0.00000    501  3673     177
715  QuickLookSat 0.0   00:00.68 2     1    53    13M    1856K  0B     715  1    sleeping  0[0]            0.00000 0.00000    501  17221    246
713  automountd   0.0   00:00.02 7     1    30    1144K  0B     0B     713  1    sleeping *0[1]            0.00000 0.00000    0    2619     187
712  com.apple.ap 0.0   00:00.73 4     2    210+  9776K+ 12K    0B     712  1    sleeping *0[21+]          0.00000 0.03544    501  10239+   377
711  cupsd        0.0   00:00.08 3     1    45    2676K  0B     0B     711  1    sleeping  0[0]            0.00000 0.00000    0    2327     152
710  printtool    0.0   00:00.04 2     2    31    1056K  0B     0B     710  1    sleeping  0[27]           0.00000 0.00000    501  2618     159
708  colorsync.us 0.0   00:00.03 2     1    51    1012K  0B     0B     708  1    sleeping *0[1]            0.00000 0.00000    501  1665     146
707  MTLCompilerS 0.0   00:00.42 2     2    32    21M    0B     0B     707  1    sleeping  0[13]           0.00000 0.00000    501  9832     257
706  MTLCompilerS 0.0   00:00.15 2     2    25    6312K  0B     0B     706  1    sleeping  0[3]            0.00000 0.00000    0    5070     253
705  com.apple.hi 0.0   00:00.06 2     2    33    996K   0B     0B     705  1    sleeping  0[80]           0.00000 0.00000    501  1679

As far as I remember on Linux laptops, number of threads launched immediately after boot up is far fewer when compared to macOS.

Best Answer

The number of processes doesn't really matter, as long as they don't consume CPU time. Rerun with top -o cpu to see the processes using most CPU at the top.

Having said that,

  • right now you have 302 active processes which looks okish for a freshly booted system
  • a load average of 1.58/1.58/1.52 is practically nothing, and the CPU is 84.9% idle.

So whatever slowness you experience does not come from anything CPU intensive.

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