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Quick reference

top Cheatsheet

Quick reference guide for top Unix process monitor, covering interactive keyboard shortcuts, sorting by CPU and memory, and process control.

· Published

The top command provides a dynamic real-time view of running processes and system resource utilization on Linux and UNIX systems.

Interactive Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut Action
h / ? Display interactive help menu
q Quit top
k Kill a process by entering PID
r Renice a process priority
1 Toggle individual CPU core utilization views
m Toggle memory display formatting
t Toggle CPU and task summary formatting
c Toggle display between command name and full path
V Forest view (process parent-child tree view)

Sorting Processes

Shortcut Sort Field
Shift + P Sort processes by CPU usage (%CPU)
Shift + M Sort processes by memory usage (%MEM)
Shift + T Sort processes by accumulated CPU time (TIME+)
Shift + N Sort processes by process ID (PID)
Shift + R Reverse the current sorting order

Filtering and Custom Views

Shortcut Action
u Filter processes by username
o Add custom filter expression (e.g. COMMAND=node)
= Clear active interactive filters
z Toggle color highlight scheme

Related topics

#cli#top#tools#process-management#monitoring#linux
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