The new option in the task manager lets you see the current and overall power usage of a process or application. Here are the steps to see power usage in task manager.
Every application in Windows, whether it is running in the foreground or background, uses some amount of power. Depending on what the application is doing, the power usage will be very high, high, medium, or low. For example, if you are encoding a video, the power usage of the encoder application will be high compared to other processes like your browser. On laptops, the higher the power usage is, the lower will be the battery life. So, it is important to monitor the application power usage on Windows 10. If a certain application’s power usage is high, timely monitoring will help you stop it from draining the battery.
Thankfully, the Task Manager on Windows 10 has a neat little feature that displays the Power Usage and Power Usage Tread of every running process or application. Using that, you can easily determine if an application’s power usage is low, medium, high, or very high and take steps accordingly.
Without further ado, let me show you the steps to see power usage in the task manager on Windows.
Steps to See Power Usage in Task Manager on Windows 10
To see the power usage details of a process in the task manager, follow the steps below.
- Open the task manager.
- Go to the “Processes” tab.
- Right-click on any section heading.
- Select the “Power usage” checkbox.
- Select the “Power usage trend” checkbox.
- You will see the new Power Usage and Power Usage Trend coloums to the right.
Detailed Steps
1. First, we need to open the Task Manager. So, right-click on the taskbar and select the “Task Manager” option. This will open the Task Manager. You can also open it with the “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” shortcut.
2. After open the Task Manager, select the “Processes” tab. This is where you will find all the running processes and applications.
3. Since the Power Usage and Power Usage Trend are new options, they might not be visible on your machine. So, we need to make those columns visible. To do that, right-click on any section heading.
4. From the right-click options, select both “Power Usage” and “Power Usage Trend” options.
5. After enabling the options, you will see the Power Usage and Power Usage Trend coloums to the right side of the Processes tab.
Depending on the power usage of the process, the power usage and power usage trend columns are updated in realtime. By monitoring these columns, you can easily identify the power hungry processes right away.
Difference Between Power Usage and Power Usage Trend
Though both Power Usage and Power Usage Trend sounds and looks the same, they both represent different things.
Power Usage shows the current or real-time power usage by the target process or application. Depending on what the application is doing right now, the power usage will be anywhere between low, medium, high, or very high.
Power Usage Trend shows the long term power usage of the target process or application. For example, if the process is running for 30 minutes, the Power Usage Trend will show the average power usage trend in that amount of time. If the power usage trend is high or very high, it means that target process is using a lot of power for a long time. Generally, resource intensive applications like video editors, image editors, 3D applications, recording applications, etc., will have overall medium to very high power usage trends.
That is all. I hope that helps. If you are stuck or need some help, comment below and I will try to help as much as possible. If you like this article, check out how to force quit programs in Windows 10.
