[BUG] Found 30+ "2.1.1" processes in my Activity Monitor, despite having 3 Terminals open.

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

Was perusing my Activity Monitor and noted I had a very high usage despite not having many programs open. I went through the list and found well over 30 "2.1.1" named processes, stemming from Claude, despite only having 3 or 4 terminals open.

I asked Claude to check it out and suggested they were orphaned processes that should have self-terminated. We closed them out and it recovered around 8gb memory usage. So this got me thinking... if Claude Code isn't properly self terminating processes after use for me, I wonder if it's the same issue for others. Potential bug!

What Should Happen?

I assume that these orphaned processes should be self-terminating, which is not occurring.

Error Messages/Logs

Claude presented these findings: xWhy so many?

  1. Subagents - When I use the Task tool to spawn agents (Explore, Bash, Plan, etc.), each runs as a separate process. These should terminate when done, but sometimes they linger.
  2. Multiple sessions - Each terminal window/tab running Claude Code is a separate process. If you've opened several sessions or Zed spawns multiple, they add up.
  3. Orphaned processes - If Claude Code or your terminal crashes/closes unexpectedly, child processes can get orphaned and stick around.

  The concern: With 30+ processes at ~250MB each, that's potentially 7-8GB of RAM dedicated to Claude Code. Your memory pressure (yellow in the screenshot) suggests this is contributing to swap usage.

Steps to Reproduce

Only discovered it after around ~7 days of opening closing multiple Claude Code terminals via Terminal/Zed/Cursor every single day.

Claude Model

Opus

Is this a regression?

I don't know

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

2.1.1

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

macOS

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

Primarily using Zed IDE to shell Claude Code terminals last few days