How to Monitor Specific User Resources with Htop on Ubuntu

This guide explains how to use the htop process viewer on Ubuntu to track resource usage for a specific user. You will learn how to install the tool, launch it from the terminal, and apply filters to isolate processes owned by a particular username. This method helps system administrators identify heavy resource consumers quickly without viewing every system process.

Install Htop

If htop is not already installed on your Ubuntu system, you need to install it via the package manager. Open your terminal and run the following commands to update your package list and install the software:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install htop

Launch Htop

Once installed, launch the application by typing the following command in your terminal and pressing Enter:

htop

This will open the interactive process viewer in your terminal window. You will see a list of all running processes and system resource meters at the top.

Filter by Specific User

To view resources for only one user, use the built-in user filter shortcut. While htop is running, press the u key on your keyboard. A prompt will appear at the bottom of the screen asking for a username.

Type the specific username you want to monitor and press Enter. The list will immediately refresh to show only the processes owned by that user. The CPU and memory meters at the top will now reflect the total usage based on the filtered view.

Navigate and Exit

You can sort the filtered processes by clicking on the column headers or using function keys. Press F6 to select a sort column, such as CPU% or MEM%, to identify which processes are consuming the most resources.

When you are finished monitoring, press the q key to quit htop and return to your standard terminal prompt.