How can I get CPU count and total RAM from the OS X command line?

Question

user29686 · Answer 1 · 2010-02-14 14:17:37Z

up vote 8 down vote accepted

scorp@antani-mac:~$ hwprefs cpu_count
2
scorp@antani-mac:~$ hwprefs memory_size
4.00 GB

answered Feb 14 '10 at 14:17

user29686

	`hwprefs` doesn't seem to be part of the default OS X install (I think it's in Xcode, or maybe the CHUD tools). – Gordon Davisson Feb 16 '10 at 4:50
	hwprefs: command not found on Mac Os x Lion – aleroot Nov 6 '11 at 10:20

feedback

Community · Answer 2 · 2011-11-06 03:13:00Z

You can get this from the system_profiler tool:

system_profiler | grep "  Memory:"
system_profiler | grep Cores:
system_profiler | grep Processors:

or, if you want to go low-level, use sysctl:

sysctl hw.memsize
sysctl hw.ncpu

btw, there are a bunch of other interesting things you can get from sysctl. Try:

sysctl -a | grep cpu

to see a few of them

2 Answers