Disable Dashboard Widget Page in OS X
Dashboard.app in OS X is a memory and CPU hog, even in the latest Snow Leopard. Although improved on with the use of grand central dispatch. If you dont use your Dashboard, you might find this command useful to save some CPU utilization, memory, and battery life on your Mac.
Quick Nav:
Step 1: Dashboard in Activity Monitor
So there it is, system is at idle bogarting my system with CPU utilization, memory usage and thus battery life. Dashboard is a very handy tool, don’t get me wrong. However even my web browsers don’t service long when they idle at 15%+ CPU utilization.
Please note, the 64 bit Dashboard is running at 0% in Snow Leopard, however it still jumps up now and then, enough for me to disable it all together.
Step 2: Terminal Commands
To disable the Dashboard within OS X is simple with the use of Terminal.app, open it up and type int he following commands.
To Disable:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock
That’s it, Dashboard is now disabled and will not start. You can get back to computing with less fan noise, and the likes.
To Enable:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO
killall Dock
Open Dashboard.app and everything is back to its.. good old self.
