How to see every dev server and port on Mac

This lists every TCP port something is listening on, with the program and its PID:

lsof -nP -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN

It shows a snapshot, by program rather than by project. For a live list grouped by project, use a menu bar app like Portlivo (next section), or read on to get the project from Terminal.

Portlivo turns that lsof output into a list of named servers: project folder, command, uptime, HTTP health, CPU and memory, grouped into web servers and services. It refreshes every two seconds and lives in the menu bar (⌥⌘P from anywhere).

It also marks servers your network can reach, and badges anything started by Claude Code or Codex.

COMMAND     PID USER   FD   TYPE  DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
node      48213 you    23u  IPv6  0x8c2f…      0t0  TCP *:3000 (LISTEN)
node      51877 you    24u  IPv4  0x1d07…      0t0  TCP 127.0.0.1:5173 (LISTEN)
php       52210 you     8u  IPv4  0x6b3a…      0t0  TCP 127.0.0.1:8000 (LISTEN)
postgres    611 you     7u  IPv6  0x4e19…      0t0  TCP [::1]:5432 (LISTEN)
redis-ser   702 you     6u  IPv4  0x93c4…      0t0  TCP 127.0.0.1:6379 (LISTEN)
ControlCe   423 you     9u  IPv4  0x2f88…      0t0  TCP *:7000 (LISTEN)

• *:3000 accepts connections from other devices on your network; 127.0.0.1 or [::1] means only this Mac.
• Names are cut to nine characters: redis-ser is redis-server, and ControlCe is ControlCenter, which is macOS’s AirPlay Receiver on 5000 and 7000. Add +c 0 to see full names: lsof -nP +c 0 -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN.
• One server can show twice, once for IPv4 and once for IPv6, with the same PID.

macOS’s netstat shows the same sockets, with PIDs, but is harder to read:

netstat -anv -p tcp | grep LISTEN

lsof shows node or php, not your project. To get the command line and the folder one process runs in:

ps -p <PID> -o command=
lsof -a -p <PID> -d cwd -Fn | sed -n 's/^n//p'

Or for every listening process at once, folder first:

for pid in $(lsof -ti -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN | sort -u); do
  printf '%s\t%s\n' "$(lsof -a -p "$pid" -d cwd -Fn | sed -n 's/^n//p')" "$(ps -p "$pid" -o command=)"
done

A folder of / usually means a system or app process (an editor helper, for example) rather than a project.

Anything not bound to 127.0.0.1 or [::1] accepts connections from your network, for example a phone on the same Wi-Fi:

lsof -nP -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN | grep -vE '127\.0\.0\.1|\[::1\]'

That’s what you want when testing on a phone, and worth knowing on café Wi-Fi. Most dev servers only listen on localhost unless you pass --host (Vite) or -H 0.0.0.0 (Next.js).

macOS has no watch command, but a loop does the same. Press Ctrl-C to stop:

while true; do clear; lsof -nP -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN; sleep 2; done

Ports published by Docker show up in lsof as com.docker.backend (or OrbStack), not as your app. List containers with their ports, and Homebrew services with their state:

docker ps --format '{{.Names}}\t{{.Ports}}'
brew services list

Activity Monitor lists processes with CPU and memory, but not the ports they listen on. Double-click a process → Open Files and Ports to see its sockets, one process at a time. Fine for one server, slow for ten.

Found something you want to stop? See how to kill the process on a port.