What is WeatherWidget on macOS?

Last updated: 2026-07-31

What it is

WeatherWidget is the real name of an Apple component built into the macOS Weather app. Its bundle identifier is com.apple.weather.widget, and its executable is located inside the Weather app at /System/Applications/Weather.app/Contents/PlugIns/WeatherWidget.appex/Contents/MacOS/WeatherWidget. It is not a third-party weather program or an independently installed background utility.

More specifically, WeatherWidget is a WidgetKit extension. It supplies the weather views that can appear on the desktop or in Notification Center, showing conditions and forecasts for the current location or for places selected by the user. This distinction matters because a widget extension does not behave like a traditional daemon that has to remain active continuously.

WidgetKit starts WeatherWidget when it needs the extension to produce a snapshot or update its timeline. Once that work is complete, the system may suspend or terminate it. Seeing WeatherWidget appear in Activity Monitor therefore does not establish that it has been running all day, and seeing it disappear does not mean that the widget has been permanently disabled.

Why it talks to the network

A weather widget needs current weather data for the place it displays. Network activity may occur after a WeatherWidget instance is added or configured, when WidgetKit asks for a new snapshot or timeline, or when the displayed location changes. The extension also links WeatherKit.

Apple’s privacy information says that the current location, or another location for which the user requests a forecast, is sent to Apple so that relevant weather information can be returned. The connection category that can be confirmed is therefore Apple’s weather services and their content-delivery infrastructure.

Apple Weather incorporates information from national meteorological organizations and other upstream sources, but that does not show that WeatherWidget connects directly to those organizations. The precise hostnames are unverified. It is also unverified whether a particular request is carried directly by WeatherWidget or by a related weather service process. Apple has not publicly documented the exact division of network work between these processes.

How much traffic is normal

WeatherWidget is expected to generate low-volume, intermittent traffic. Its activity is closer to periodic exchanges of API metadata than to loading web media, downloading software updates, or carrying audio or video streams. If no Weather widget has been added, or no refresh is currently needed, its traffic can be close to zero.

That description should not be turned into a guaranteed number. Apple does not publish a normal byte range for WeatherWidget, and it does not provide a fixed refresh interval for the extension. Claims that it always transfers only a few kilobytes, or that it uses a specific number of megabytes per day, are unverified.

Actual activity can vary with the number of configured widgets, the number of locations they cover, the weather items being shown, and WidgetKit’s scheduling. Multiple widgets or locations may increase traffic, but there is no supported process-level baseline that determines exactly how much the increase should be. A snapshot from one Mac should not be treated as a universal allowance for every Mac.

Can you turn it off

Apple does not provide a dedicated WeatherWidget switch or a WeatherWidget-specific path in System Settings. If the widget is not needed, the supported way to stop using it is to Control-click each Weather widget on the desktop or in Notification Center and choose Remove Widget. Every instance needs to be removed if the goal is to stop displaying WeatherWidget entirely.

Removing the widgets takes away the at-a-glance weather display from the desktop and Notification Center. It does not remove or disable the Weather app, which remains available for forecasts.

Turning off System Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Weather has a narrower effect. It prevents Weather from accessing the current location, but it does not disable forecast refreshes for fixed cities selected by the user. Force-quitting WeatherWidget is also temporary: while a widget remains configured, WidgetKit may launch the extension again when another snapshot or timeline update is due.

What people get wrong

• “WeatherWidget is malware or an unknown third-party weather app.” It is neither. com.apple.weather.widget is Apple’s platform-signed widget extension distributed as part of the macOS Weather app.

• “It is a daemon that runs all day and polls continuously.” That does not accurately describe WidgetKit’s execution model. Widget extensions are awakened according to their timelines and system budgets rather than kept continuously active.

• “Force Quit permanently turns it off.” Ending the current process only ends that instance. WidgetKit can start WeatherWidget again while one or more Weather widgets remain configured.

• “Disabling Weather location access stops every network request.” Location permission controls access to the current location. Apple also receives locations that the user explicitly searches for or follows so that it can return forecasts for them.

• “All of its traffic goes directly to The Weather Channel or a local weather agency.” There is no reliable evidence for that process-level claim. Apple Weather combines multiple data sources, but WeatherWidget’s exact endpoints and the distribution of requests among weather-related processes are not public.

• “It always uses only a fixed few kilobytes, so its traffic can never be noticeable.” Apple has not published a WeatherWidget traffic baseline. The number of widgets, their locations, the displayed weather items, and system scheduling can all affect observed activity.

• “Deleting the system extension, disabling SIP, or modifying system files is the proper way to save traffic.” Those measures are not the supported method. Removing all Weather widgets achieves the user-visible result without altering protected system components.

Seeing what it actually used

If WeatherWidget appears unusually active, the next step is to measure it over the same period in which the widgets are updating instead of comparing it with an unsupported daily estimate. Bytetally’s per-process history can show how much traffic was attributed to WeatherWidget and when it occurred. Keep in mind that the exact division between WeatherWidget and related weather service processes remains unverified.

Related processes

Common questions