How to View Accumulated CPU Time in htop on Ubuntu

Monitoring system performance is essential for maintaining a healthy Ubuntu environment. The htop utility provides an interactive view of running processes, allowing users to identify resource-heavy applications quickly. This article explains how to locate and interpret the accumulated CPU time for specific processes within htop, enabling you to track long-term resource usage effectively.

To begin, ensure htop is installed on your system. Open your terminal and run the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install htop

Once installed, launch the utility by typing htop and pressing Enter. The main interface displays a list of running processes along with various metrics at the top of the screen.

Look for the column labeled TIME+. This column represents the total accumulated CPU time the process has used since it started. It is formatted as hours, minutes, and seconds. If you do not see this column, you may need to configure the display settings.

To add the CPU time column if it is missing, press F2 to enter the Setup menu. Navigate to the “Columns” section. Use the spacebar to select TIME+ and move it to the active columns list using the F5 or F6 keys. Press F10 to save and exit.

You can sort the processes by this metric to find the most CPU-intensive tasks over time. Press F6 to select the sort column, then choose TIME+ from the list. This will reorder the process list, placing the tasks with the highest accumulated CPU time at the top.

Understanding this metric helps distinguish between processes using high CPU percentage at this exact moment versus those that have consumed significant resources over a longer period.