How can I display the top results in my terminal in real time so that the list is sorted by memory usage?
asked May 11, 2014 at 20:27
10 Answers
Use the top command in Linux/Unix:
top
- press shift+m after running the
topcommand - or you can interactively choose which column to sort on
- press Shift+f to enter the interactive menu
- press the up or down arrow until the
%MEMchoice is highlighted - press s to select
%MEMchoice - press enter to save your selection
- press q to exit the interactive menu
Or specify the sort order on the command line
# on OS-X
top -o MEM
# other distros
top -o %MEM
References
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4802481/how-to-see-top-processes-by-actual-memory-usage
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9
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@GabrielHautclocq It must depend upon your distribution of Linux, and the package bundled with it. Debian 7 uses
procps-ngand there is no-ooption at all in that version.SHIFT-Mworks for me oncetopis launched. Commented Sep 1, 2017 at 13:59 -
top -o %MEMworks on my debian 8 and 9, but not on debian 7, you are right @Christopher Schultz. Commented Sep 3, 2017 at 17:16 -
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The command line option -o (o standing for "Override-sort-field") also works on my Xubuntu machine and according to the Mac man page of top it should work on a Macintosh too. If I want to short by memory usage I usually use
top -o %MEM
which sorts by the column %MEM. But I can use VIRT, RES or SHR too. On a Macintosh I would probably use mem or vsize.
I don't know why or how but this is pretty much different between Unix systems and even between Linux distributions. For example -o isn't even available on my Raspberry running Wheezy. It may be worth give it a try though.
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3The answer could user more clarity:
%MEMis given as an answer to the eager reader; while it doesn't work everywhere (by far).– 7heo.tkCommented May 6, 2015 at 15:00 -
2For Macbook 2014 this is saying:
top -o %MEM invalid argument -o: %MEMCommented Jun 1, 2015 at 17:43 -
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2@anon58192932 you should replace
%MEM(orPID,VIRT, etc.) by any column name that you see when runningtoponly. As noted by ytg, "on a Macintosh I would probably usememorvsize".– ebosiCommented Mar 29, 2017 at 1:59 -
1
For Ubuntu 14.04 starting with
htop -s PERCENT_MEM
or (equivalently)
htop --sort-key PERCENT_MEM
did the trick for me.
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4it's different command. Looking for answer about the
topcommand (as asked in this question) nothtop. Commented Oct 28, 2018 at 9:55 -
htopis obviously a completely different tool in a different package. In lots of cases you have no choice buttopbecause there's nohtopto install– phuclvCommented Aug 3, 2022 at 4:31
It seems like the -o flag will take the actual column name. So if the top command shows only "mem" then the command should be "top -o mem".
For the ubuntu machine I am testing with, the column is called "%MEM". On the OSX Yosemite I tried, it is "mem".
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use
top -Oto get a list of the field names which could be used for that -o argument Commented Jun 4, 2022 at 17:30
If you're using the top that comes with Ubuntu (top -v = procps-ng version 3.3.10), then you can use these interactive keyboard shortcuts to change the sorting. Note that these are all capital letters, so either use shift or caps lock.
M %MEM
N PID
P %CPU
T TIME+
By default, they will be sorted in DESC order. Use R to toggle ASC/DESC.
To set the sorting from the command line option, use top -o %MEM. You can specify any column.
The original question seems to have been for a Mac, but for anyone else stumbling across this answer, on Red Hat Linux (and many others), 'top -m' starts top with results sorted by memory usage.
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1Worked on: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.8 (none of the other answers worked).– ContangoCommented Mar 21, 2017 at 17:18
Ubuntu 14.04 - this works just fine:
htop --sort-key=PERCENT_MEM
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If top is already running, press o . Above the data, a prompt will appear:
primary key [xxxxx]:
Where xxxxx is the current sorting key. Type the name of the column by which you want to sort. If a column name contains "%" or "#", omit the character. For %CPU, just type "cpu".
On linux, run:
$ top
Then press, Shift + M.
On RHEL 7 & 8, after running top I just type > to move across columns to sort by.
Since it starts sorted by CPU, only one > is required.
A commenter on the original question has also suggested this.
>and<move the sort column right and left. Since the%MEMcolumn is just right of the%CPUcolumn, which is also the default sort column, it takes only one keystroke to switch between the two. I know, your question has the macintosh tag, that's why I'm writing this answer as a comment.htop, mainly because it tells me how to do this.htop, in addition toshift + M, you will likely want to turn off the display of threads and just show the main process memory consumption withshift + H. See unix.stackexchange.com/a/10403/27902.