chrome on a mac generates a ton of processes

By Selwyn Polit, 25 August, 2021

So I noticed recently when I ran ps -edalf on my mac that there were a ton of processes that look like this:

 

1926579176 48133     1     4004   0  31  0  2474764   5384 -      S                   0 ??         0:00.01 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48135 48130     4004   0  31  0  3282368  81012 -      S                   0 ??         0:08.09 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48155 48130     4004   0  31  0  3495356 122076 -      S                   0 ??         0:10.81 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48156 48130     4004   0  31  0  3360596  40364 -      S                   0 ??         0:00.42 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48157 48130     4004   0  31  0  3371632  60684 -      S                   0 ??         0:08.00 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48158 48130     4004   0  31  0  3337084  37432 -      S                   0 ??         0:00.33 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48159 48130     4004   0  31  0  3337596  37532 -      S                   0 ??         0:00.34 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48160 48130     4004   0  31  0  3349400  50220 -      S                   0 ??         0:02.28 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48161 48130     4004   0  31  0  3440948  89072 -      S                   0 ??         0:34.86 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48162 48130     4004   0  31  0  3360112  42064 -      S                   0 ??         0:00.41 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48164 48130     4004   0  31  0  3345848  40988 -      S                   0 ??         0:00.74 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48165 48130     4004   0  31  0  3404180  65000 -      S                   0 ??         0:07.73 /Applications/Go 11:14AM
1926579176 48166 48130     4004   0  31  0  3423560  76960 -      S                   0 ??         0:08.78 /Applications/Go 11:14AM

I wondered what on earth these were.  They go away when I close Chrome.  It turns out that the ps command trims down the name of the executable to "/Applications/Go"  Not so helpful!  I tried a variation on the ps command

pf -edalfc

and saw:

1926579176 48135 48130     4004   0  49  0  3269780 100156 -      S                   0 ??         0:55.86 Google Chrome He 11:14AM
1926579176 48155 48130     4004   0  31  0  3593696 105364 -      S                   0 ??         0:40.40 Google Chrome He 11:14AM
1926579176 48156 48130     4004   0  31  0  3389752  59384 -      S                   0 ??         0:05.25 Google Chrome He 11:14AM
1926579176 48157 48130     4004   0  31  0  3427316 106300 -      S                   0 ??         0:55.61 Google Chrome He 11:14AM
1926579176 48158 48130     4004   0  31  0  3336516  36956 -      S                   0 ??         0:00.55 Google Chrome He 11:14AM
1926579176 48159 48130     4004   0  31  0  3337028  37152 -      S                   0 ??         0:00.55 Google Chrome He 11:14AM

That was much more helpful.  I couldn't find anything about this on the ole interweb so I thought I'd document it quickly.

 

enjoy

Selwyn