While you don't need to do this often, sometimes you want to take a look at the temperature and the fan speed of your Mac. There are a few reasons why you might want to do this. Maybe you’re trying to diagnose an issue, or maybe you’re just curious and want to find how cool or hot your CPU is.

Regardless, there are many system monitoring apps for macOS that let you do that. You can grab these apps from their websites or the official App Store. Once installed, these apps run a scan and give you real-time data of your CPU’s temperature and fan speeds.

We're looking at two such apps to monitor your Mac’s temp and fan speeds.

How to Check Fan Speed and CPU Temperature on a Mac Using Fanny

Fanny is a free and open-source app that sits in your Mac’s Notification Center and menu bar. You click the icon at either location and it will show you both your fan speeds as well as CPU temperatures.

You don't even need to fully install the app. All you need to do is double-click the downloaded file and the app will go straight to your menu bar. Click the icon there and you’ll see the current fan speeds and CPU and GPU temperatures on your Mac.

View Mac's CPU temp and fan speeds with Fanny

You can add a widget for this app in your Notification Center, using the following steps:

  1. Open the Notification Center on your Mac.
  2. Click Edit at the bottom to edit your widgets list.
  3. You’ll find Fanny in the list. Click the Add (+) sign next to Fanny to add it to your Notification Center.
    Add the Fanny widget to the Notification Center

Fanny has a preferences menu where you can change some of its options, like the unit for the temperature, refresh interval, and other options.

How to Check Mac Fan Speed and CPU Temperature Using Macs Fan Control

Unlike Fanny, Macs Fan Control (free, with an optional Pro version available) doesn’t let you view any information from the menu bar. You need to open the app like you would any other app, and then find and view the information you want.

If you’ve installed the app already, click its icon in the menu bar and select Show Macs Fan Control. The app will open and you can see your fan speeds on the left and your CPU temperatures on the right.

View Mac's info using Macs Fan Control

Look carefully and you will notice that there’s actually much more information here than in Fanny. You can view the temperatures of each core of your CPU, as well as the temperature for your HDD or SSD drive.

You can modify various options by clicking the Preferences button at the bottom. You'll see three different tabs to customize your settings. These settings include changing the temperature unit displayed, enabling and disabling temperature checks for various items, and customizing the appearance of the tool in your menu bar.

If you find a fan's speed is unusual, you're not stuck with it. It's rare that you would need to do this, but there are ways you can actually control your Mac’s fan speed if you need to.

Monitoring Your Mac’s Fan Speed and CPU Temperatures

If you find your Mac getting too hot or the fan blowing too fast, it’s a good idea to install one of the apps mentioned above and check for yourself what’s happening where. This can be your first step towards troubleshooting an issue that could turn into a nightmare if not fixed in time.

Heating issues are pretty common on macOS, and there are ways to deal with them. You should look into these issues as soon as they occur to make sure they’re fixed before they turn into something bigger and become complicated.