How to sort ps output by process start time?

Question

Is there a way to sort ps output by process start time, so newest are either at the top or bottom ?

On Linux ?

On SysV5 ?

On Mac ?

score 120 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 18 '09 at 09:28

120

This should work on Linux and SysV5

ps -ef --sort=start_time

answered Jun 18 '09 at 09:28

Sekenre

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This works exactly as requested, thanks. After more digging I am not sure this is possible on Mac OS without a bit of awk – Dean Smith Jun 18 '09 at 09:50
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start_time worked. lstart did not. RHEL – Felipe Alvarez Mar 06 '15 at 05:22
`ps aux --sort=start_time` command works fine – Suresh Mahawar Jun 22 '16 at 09:34
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how to I reverse the order? – Phu Nguyen Sep 26 '16 at 11:30
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@PhuNguyen bit late to the party, but maybe someone else has a use for this. You can reverse the order by piping the output through `tac`. – Paul Oct 23 '17 at 22:28
How about keep watching the last 10 processes ? – Stephane Jul 22 '19 at 15:16
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@Stephane try this: `watch "ps -ef --sort=start_time | grep -v kworker | tail"` – Sekenre Jul 25 '19 at 10:37
My take `ps-recent() { watch "ps -ef --sort=start_time | tail -n $1"; }` – Stephane Jul 25 '19 at 13:52
@PhuNguyen use a '-' before the key like --sort=-pid '+' is redundant to the default – elig Aug 11 '19 at 05:01

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 18 '09 at 09:21

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Linux:

$ ps aux --sort=lstart

OSX:

$ ps aux -O started

answered Jun 18 '09 at 09:21

rkthkr

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I'm afraid neither of those sorts by start time. It does display the start time, but doesn't sort. – Dean Smith Jun 18 '09 at 09:45
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The difference between lstart and start_time caught me out as well -- `lstart` gives a full timestamp, but cannot be used as a sort key. `start_time` gives the usual 'time within the last 24 hours, date otherwise' column, and can be used as a sort key. Both give 'STARTED' in the header. – LHMathies Apr 05 '12 at 08:22
time within last hour: if a process was launched yesterday at a time later than today, it will appear after today's process ... can't be used by sort, unless a bit of "awk" changes that – Olivier Dulac May 22 '13 at 10:16
@OlivierDulac: not for me. `15/12 15:40` appears before `16/12 15:39`, just as `13:39` appears before `15:38`. – Gauthier Dec 16 '14 at 14:41
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lstart did not work for me. start_time did. – Felipe Alvarez Mar 06 '15 at 05:21
OS X 10.11: `ps: started: keyword not found`. `ps -L` gives `lstart` and `start`. – 0x89 Aug 01 '16 at 09:30

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 28 '10 at 17:16

Along with the great answers above, sometimes I just want to see the top 20 offenders by process sorted descending by time, cpu% and memory usage.

For that I use:

ps auxww --sort=lstart | sort -r -k3,4 | head -20

This would be on a CentOS platform, though I've enjoyed the same results on Fedora as well.

Oh and for grins, I sometimes want to remove a set of processes, so I simply use a variant on the above that includes a bit of grep -v action, such as:

ps auxww --sort=lstart | sort -r -k3,4 | grep -v "sbin/httpd" | head -20

`--sort` of `ps` does not work for me. Relying on shell `sort`. +1 — kellogs, Jan 25 '15 at 11:32

score 4 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 02 '16 at 08:25

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I can't comment yet, but to answer the question about how to reverse the order of a time sort, just put a minus sign (-) in front of the field.
Example: ps -elf --sort=-start_time

edited Dec 02 '16 at 08:25

Diamond

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answered Nov 29 '16 at 17:10

Barry S

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score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 03 '13 at 02:23

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Or try 'ls', as it allows time formats that are easy to sort, and easier to use.

( cd /proc; ls -td --full-time --time-style=+%s [0123456789]*; )

Outputs the date/time in epoch, newest procs at the top.

answered Jul 03 '13 at 02:23

Jim Black

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this only shows the pids – elig Aug 11 '19 at 05:07

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Mar 13 '18 at 18:14

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Try simple command:

ps | sort -k7 -n

-k7 for the time column and -n for numeric.

Example

edited Mar 13 '18 at 18:14

Andrew Schulman

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answered Mar 13 '18 at 17:11

Khushboo Goyal

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score 0 · Answer 7 · answered May 25 '20 at 00:07

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I know it's obsolete syntax, but I find it practical for brevity:

ps OT <other_options>

For example:

ps OT ax

answered May 25 '20 at 00:07

Pedro Gimeno

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How to sort ps output by process start time?

7 Answers7