Nono.MA

LAST UPDATED JANUARY 25, 2023

This guide is for macOS Ventura. Check this page for macOS Monterey1.


As is port 3000, port 5000 is commonly used to serve local development servers. When updating to the latest macOS operating system, I noticed my React development server, which I'm serving with React create-serve was using a port other than 5000, because it was already in use. (You may find a message along the lines of Port 5000 already in use.)

By running lsof -i :5000, I found out the process using the port was named ControlCenter, which is a native macOS application. If this happens to you, even if you use brute force (and kill) the application, it will restart itself. In my laptop, lsof -i :5000 returns that Control Center is being used by process id 433. I could do killall -p 433, but macOS keeps restarting the process.

The process running on this port turns out to be an AirPlay server. You can deactivate it in System SettingsGeneralAirDrop & Handoff and uncheck AirPlay Receiver to release port 5000.

Sample error in Node.js

As an aside, I just ran into this same issue when trying to run a Node.js server application as of September 13, 2022.

uncaught exception: listen EADDRINUSE: address already in use :::5000
Error: listen EADDRINUSE: address already in use :::5000

If you found this useful, let me know!


  1. Big thanks to Q. Wang for letting me know of the location change of this setting for macOS Ventura. 

LAST UPDATED JANUARY 25, 2023

This guide is for macOS Monterey. Check this page for macOS Ventura.


As is port 3000, port 5000 is commonly used to serve local development servers. When updating to the latest macOS operating system, I noticed my React development server, which I'm serving with React create-serve was using a port other than 5000, because it was already in use. (You may find a message along the lines of Port 5000 already in use.)

By running lsof -i :5000, I found out the process using the port was named ControlCenter, which is a native macOS application. If this happens to you, even if you use brute force (and kill) the application, it will restart itself. In my laptop, lsof -i :5000 returns that Control Center is being used by process id 433. I could do killall -p 433, but macOS keeps restarting the process.

The process running on this port turns out to be an AirPlay server. You can deactivate it in System PreferencesSharing and uncheck AirPlay Receiver to release port 5000.

Sample error in Node.js

As an aside, I just ran into this same issue when trying to run a Node.js server application as of September 13, 2022.

uncaught exception: listen EADDRINUSE: address already in use :::5000
Error: listen EADDRINUSE: address already in use :::5000

If you found this useful, let me know!

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