Hindsight Features
English

Resource Usage

Hindsight’s memory and CPU usage mainly depend on three things: whether screenshots are enabled, whether background OCR is enabled, and whether the main window is being displayed.

Windows results

Settings Main window open Main window closed
Screenshots and background OCR off (default) About 145 MB memory, 2.0% CPU About 25 MB memory, 0.3% CPU
Screenshots only About 145 MB memory, 3.5% CPU About 26 MB memory, 2.4% CPU
Screenshots and background OCR About 400 MB memory, 4.1% CPU About 280 MB memory, 3.0% CPU
  1. Memory figures use the same metric as Task Manager’s “Memory” column: the private working set.
  2. CPU usage is the average; 100% means one core is fully utilized.
  3. Power was not measured because Windows does not provide per-process power consumption data.
  4. GPU usage is negligible, less than 0.3% in total.
  5. When the main window is closed, the Windows version keeps its web processes in a suspended state. Their memory usage drops from around 130 MB to under 10 MB within about 30 seconds.

macOS results

Settings Main window open Main window closed
Screenshots and background OCR off (default) About 180 MB memory, 3.6% CPU, 5 mW power About 40 MB memory, 0.2% CPU, under 1 mW power
Screenshots only About 190 MB memory, 3.9% CPU, 30 mW power About 50 MB memory, 0.7% CPU, 30 mW power
Screenshots and background OCR About 260 MB memory, 4.5% CPU, 35 mW power About 110 MB memory, 1.5% CPU, 40 mW power
  1. CPU usage is the average; 100% means one core is fully utilized.
  2. Power is the average per-process estimate reported by macOS. It is useful for comparing configurations, but does not equal actual power consumption.
  3. GPU usage is negligible, less than 0.1% in total.

Test conditions

  • Windows: desktop PC with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, 64 GB memory, Windows 11 Pro, Hindsight 0.9.4, and a screenshot interval of 30 seconds. During the test, text was typed automatically in Notepad, with the active app switching between Notepad, File Explorer, and Calculator.
  • macOS: MacBook Air with Apple M5, 24 GB memory, macOS 27, plugged in, running Hindsight 0.9.3 with a screenshot interval of 30 seconds. During the test, text was typed automatically in TextEdit.
  • The active app was switched every 10–25 seconds.
  • Each configuration ran for 2 minutes before measurements were taken for 5 minutes.
  • Hindsight was restarted before each configuration. Memory usage may be higher after a long continuous run.

These figures reflect the devices and usage patterns tested here; results will vary on other computers.

Detailed data

Windows data

Each configuration

Settings Main window Memory average / peak CPU average / peak GPU Screenshots OCR
Screenshots and background OCR off (default) 🟠 Closed 25 / 28 MB 0.3% / 8% 0 0 0
Screenshots only 🟠 Closed 26 / 38 MB 2.4% / 34% 0 16 0
Screenshots and background OCR 🟠 Closed 280 / 297 MB 3.0% / 38% 0.25% 16 16
Screenshots and background OCR off (default) 🟢 Open 145 / 152 MB 2.0% / 9% 0 0 0
Screenshots only 🟢 Open 145 / 155 MB 3.5% / 31% 0 16 0
Screenshots and background OCR 🟢 Open 400 / 405 MB 4.1% / 31% 0.23% 16 16
  1. Peaks are the highest readings from samples taken every 2 seconds.
  2. The last two columns count screenshots captured and screenshots processed by OCR during the 5-minute measurement period.

Per process

Process When it runs Average memory (peak) Average CPU
Hindsight main process Always About 17 MB (28 MB) 1.8%–2.4% with screenshots enabled; about 0.3% when disabled
Text recognition process When background OCR is enabled About 255 MB (270 MB) 0.9%–1.0%
Main window web processes (7 in total) Always 127–129 MB (137 MB) with the window open; 7–9 MB (12 MB) when closed 1.3%–1.7% with the window open; about 0 when closed
  1. The web processes belong to the system’s WebView2 runtime, which displays the main window.
  2. The text recognition process also has a commit size of about 2.3 GB, shown on Task Manager’s “Details” tab. Most of this does not occupy physical memory.

Short peaks

Activity CPU peak
Capturing one screenshot About 21%–34% in the main process
Recognizing text in one screenshot About 30%–38% in the text recognition process

Peaks are averages over 2 seconds. Instantaneous peaks can be higher and last for less time.

macOS data

Each configuration

Settings Main window Memory average / peak CPU average / peak GPU Power Screenshots OCR
Screenshots and background OCR off (default) 🟠 Closed 40 / 54 MB 0.2% / 5% 0 0.7 mW 0 0
Screenshots only 🟠 Closed 48 / 64 MB 0.7% / 7% 0 29 mW 16 0
Screenshots and background OCR 🟠 Closed 112 / 144 MB 1.5% / 31% 0 39 mW 16 16
Screenshots and background OCR off (default) 🟢 Open 181 / 290 MB 3.6% / 12% 0.06% 5 mW 0 0
Screenshots only 🟢 Open 193 / 304 MB 3.9% / 18% 0.07% 31 mW 17 0
Screenshots and background OCR 🟢 Open 256 / 347 MB 4.5% / 25% 0.06% 34 mW 16 16
  1. Peaks are the highest readings from samples taken every 2 seconds.
  2. The last two columns count screenshots captured and screenshots processed by OCR during the 5-minute measurement period.

Per process

Process When it runs Average memory (peak) Average CPU
Hindsight main process Always 34–44 MB (50 MB) 1.5%–1.8% with the main window open; 0.2%–0.7% when closed
Text recognition process When background OCR is enabled 66–78 MB (166 MB) 0.6%–0.8%
Main window web content process When the main window is open 118–122 MB (186 MB) About 1.9%
Main window graphics process Always 18–21 MB (75 MB) when open; about 1.5 MB when closed About 0.3% when open; 0 when closed
Network process Always About 5 MB 0

The last three are WebKit system processes used to display the main window.

Short peaks

Activity CPU peak
Capturing one screenshot About 7%
Recognizing text in one screenshot 25%–31%
On first enabling background OCR, recognizing 31 queued screenshots 124% (finished in under 2 minutes; average power was about 220 mW during those 2 minutes)

Peaks are averages over 2 seconds. Instantaneous peaks can be higher and last for less time.