Pulsetray help

Getting started

The first time Pulsetray starts, a short setup lets you pick your meters with a live preview, and optionally turn on alerts. By default you get three meters: CPU as a mini graph, Memory as a mini bar and Network as up and down speeds.

Hover a meter for a summary, such as the CPU load and the app using the most.
Click a meter to open its details.
Right-click for Open details, Pause updates, Settings, Open Task Manager, About / License and Quit.

Windows hides new tray icons under the ^ arrow. To keep a meter visible, open Windows Settings › Personalization › Taskbar › Other system tray icons and turn on each Pulsetray meter, or drag the icon from the ^ flyout onto the taskbar. Settings › Tray meters shows whether each meter is visible and has an Open taskbar settings button.

Choosing meters

In Settings › Tray meters, show one to four meters and pick a style for each: mini bar, mini graph, number, or up and down speeds. Bar meters carry a letter (C, M, D, G) so you can tell two of them apart.

Settings › General sets how often meters refresh (0.5, 1, 2 or 5 seconds) and whether network speeds show in bytes (MB/s) or bits (Mbps).
Update less often on battery saver doubles the interval, to at least 2 seconds, while Windows battery saver is on.
Settings › Appearance colors the meters with your Windows accent color or a color of your own. High contrast themes always use system colors.

The flyout opens next to the meter you clicked, with a tab for each category and the tab you used last. Switch between 1 min, 10 min and 1 hour graphs at the top.

CPU: total and per-core load, and the top apps.
Memory: in use, available and committed, and the top apps.
Network: upload and download speeds, today's totals, the adapter name and your local IP. Your public IP shows only if you turn on Allow public IP lookup in Settings › General and choose Public.
Disk: activity and read and write speed for each physical disk, and free space for each drive.
GPU: utilization and dedicated and shared memory for each graphics card.
Battery: charge, charging state, time remaining and power draw.

Top apps are grouped by program. Use Open file location to find the program, or End task to close it after a confirmation. Press Ctrl+Alt+U to open the flyout from the keyboard; change the shortcut in Settings › General.

Alerts

Turn on the alerts you want in Settings › Alerts:

CPU above a level for a number of minutes.
Memory above a level.
Free space on any drive below a number of gigabytes. This one is on by default, at 10 GB.
Battery below a level while not charging.

Alerts arrive as Windows notifications, so Focus and Do Not Disturb hold them back. Click a notification to open the flyout, then choose Snooze 1 hour or Snooze 1 day. A snoozed alert that is still true comes back when the snooze ends.

Things Windows decides

Top apps by network isn't shown. Windows only reports network use per app to programs running as administrator.
Some processes can't be ended without administrator rights, or are protected by Windows. Pulsetray tells you when that happens; open Task Manager as an administrator to end them.
Network totals count your connected network adapters only, so a VPN doesn't count the same traffic twice.
After sleep, graphs show a short gap rather than a jump.

Keyboard shortcuts

These work from anywhere in Windows while Pulsetray is running.

Action	Default shortcut
Open details	`Ctrl`+`Alt`+`U`

Trial and license

Pulsetray is free to try for 14 days, with everything turned on. After that: The first CPU meter keeps working. Other meters, the flyout details and alerts pause, and all your settings are kept.

Entering your license key

Buy a license. Your key appears on screen as soon as the payment goes through, and arrives by email.
In Pulsetray, open the License page in Settings.
Paste the key and choose Activate. The PC needs to be online for this step.

Using it on more than one PC

One key works on up to 3 PCs. To move it to a new PC, deactivate it on the old one from the License page first. If the old PC is gone, free up its place at Manage devices, using the email address you bought with or the key itself.

Once activated, Pulsetray works offline. When it's online it checks the license about once a week, so a refunded or revoked key stops working on its next check.

Bought Pulsetray in the Microsoft Store? The Store edition is licensed through your Microsoft account instead, and doesn't use a key.

Updates

Pulsetray checks for a new version on its own 2 minutes after it starts and then once a day, and asks before installing it.

Each update is checked against a fingerprint (SHA-256) before it runs, and installs over the current version without touching your data. Updates for the Microsoft Store edition come through the Store.

See what’s new in each version.

Your data and uninstalling

Pulsetray keeps its settings and data on your PC, in this folder (paste it into File Explorer’s address bar to open it):

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Hedgerow\Pulsetray

To back it up, quit Pulsetray and copy that folder.

To uninstall, open Windows Settings › Apps › Installed apps, find Pulsetray and choose Uninstall. The uninstaller asks whether to remove your data too.

Still stuck?

Email support@hedgerowapps.com and we’ll get back to you. Mention your Pulsetray version (shown in Settings › About) and your Windows version. More answers are on the support page.