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Change a Running Process's Priority with renice

Lower or raise the nice value of a running process so heavy jobs don't make the desktop laggy.

LinuxProcessesreniceMedium risk
Run sudo renice -n 10 -p PID to give process PID a lower priority (nicer), or a negative number with sudo to raise it.

01Command

Command
$ sudo renice -n 10 -p 12345

02What it does

Every process has a nice value from -20 (highest priority) to 19 (lowest). renice changes it while the process is already running, so you don't have to kill and restart a long compile or backup. Raising the number makes the process yield CPU time to everything else; lowering it requires root privileges. Find the PID with pgrep or top first.

03Risk

RiskMedium risk
!Warning: A high nice value does not cap the process if the CPU is idle — it only matters when the system is busy.

04Undo

Undo
$ sudo renice -n 0 -p 12345

05Sources

  • renice(1) — Ubuntu manpage
    Ubuntu · community · 2026-09-17
    Evidence: Ubuntu manpage shows renice alters the scheduling priority of running processes, with -p targeting process IDs
  • renice(1) — man7.org
    man7.org · community · 2026-09-17
    Evidence: Man page documents renice -n to adjust the nice value (scheduling priority) of running processes with -p for pid

Last verified: 2026-09-19 · Category: System & Settings

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