Accountsd CPU usage high in macOS Catalina

"..... I am switching to another email client...."

is the way to go if you are one of the few with this problem.

I have done it in the past with other MacOS versions when Mail threw its dolly out the buggy and returned to Mail in later versions.

I'm currently on Outlook 365 (for another reason) but sorting out source of contacts can be a chore.

Better than beating yourself or Apple up about it though.

Try Airmail 4

Thanks for this simple reminder @WESTBERLIN. I'm beyond frustrated with the Mail situation and have been going through lots of frustration with Outlook as well taking tons of physical memory so I'm for now settling on using Mail but having it set to Manually. Mail does NOT take the crazy about of CPU % and works normally and every now and again since I'm on email pretty constantly I do GET NEW MAIL. And Ironically some email still comes in even though I have it set on Manually. Hate to settle but after doing everything suggested here (even the keychain folder deleting issue which has NOT helped me in the end), until Apple solves this the Mail Manually is the best option for me to keep my sanity. Good luck all.

I have to say that setting the check new mail frequency to Manual did alleviate a lot of headaches for me. It's the only way I have been able to actually get work done on my 16" MBP with Mail open. Just have to remember to check new mail occasionally. So far that has been the best temporary work around until Apple get's this resolved.

I have a case open with Apple. They've gone silent but I continue to pester them. They collected a LOT of information from my MacBook pro. At the same time, I wrote a detailed article on how to setup a cron job that kills accountsd every morning at 1:00am. This keeps it from growing bigger than so 650MB in size.

I have a second problem where Mail will scramble my accounts around in the list, randomly. I've reported this as well and am investigating on what is causing this.

I can't post the link to my blog here, unfortunately. I've been scolded for that before.

Within 5 minutes after updating to 10.15.5 my mail with all my accounts active (3x Office 365, 1x iCloud and 2x imap) the mail and accountsd were back to:

This issue is also not mentioned in the release notes for 10.15.5 so it seems time had come to abandon Apple Mail and start using an other mail client that does work!

There are so many inconsistent observations about this issue that I have to wonder if it's a symptom that can be the result of multiple different causes. Here's another observation: I had this problem about six months ago and after several false starts, I deleted my ATT email account. The high CPU usage issue went away instantly. Then a month ago, I re-added that account but the high usage issue did not return. Might there have been particular email(s) that were causing my issue? Downloading large graphics or hidden code? Or am I engaged in tin foil hat talk?

As many have noted here, I finally just gave up on Apple Mail. I use MS Outlook for all of my email accounts (work account that's via Google, iCloud personal email and another work account that's via MS Exchange 365). It's not as good as Apple Mail (happy to elaborate if needed) but there's none of this nonsense of Mail's CPU utilization becoming so high that it hurts productivity.

I am praying that Apple fixes Mail in the new upcoming version (Big Sur)...

This specific issue has 23 pages of complaints / struggles / suggestions by users of Mail. Apple doesn't appear to monitor this thread or doesn't care or doesn't know how to fix the problem. My $0.02. is that calling Apple Support (which I have also done) results in discussions with a support person who makes you go through various steps but in the end cannot fix the problem. At least the 3 times that I've tried, this has been the case.

As of now - Apple Mail is a waste of time and effort.

I resisted getting off Apple Mail for a long time, in the hopes that thing would somehow get fixed. I have finally switched almost entirely to Microsoft Outlook (desktop version) and it works OK (not great but gets the job done).

I am hoping that either a) Apple fixes the problem soon - in Big Sur or soon thereafter, and if that's not going to happen then b) another mail client provider figure out how to support Gmail, iCloud and Exchange emails (others too) correctly, or c) Microsoft Outlook fixes the remaining defects and strange design choices for some of their features.

At the very worst, I will be stuck using Outlook and while it's not great, it's not terrible either.

I'm in the same camp as those for whom 10.15.6 seems to have fixed this issue. I'm disinclined to say that it's a permanent fix until something like a week or a month has gone by, but that it hasn't recurred in three days is pretty remarkable given that nothing I'd done seemed to work for more than five minutes until now.

Great - rather it is not...

Catalina makes me crazy and kills a 16 years extreme positive attitude towards Macs:

Mail

It constantly eats CPU together with accountsd in case of no network situations. Just going from another place from the notebook slept, Mail becomes crazy in that short period when the computer will connect to another network. Close Mail, kill accountsd...

Sometimes accidentally the same **** happens.

After a while it is worth to check how mauch memory accountsd uses. If it is above 1,5 GB (!!!!!!) it must be force quit.

Popup kind dialogs

Some dialogs (I did not recognise how to identify and forecast which will be problematic), will get a complete core eating 100% CPU. Just for waiting to type a password! In 2020...

Spotlight and backup processes sometimes get hit - much more then before and runs, runs, ...

These results that the machine is hot too many time, you cannot use it as a LAPtop, siting in an armchair, battery drains, fans spin (maximum speed, maximum noise), showing to the world an even worse picture as using a low cost, low-end laptop.

You can be sure, I tried each and every tricks and suggestions I found - having loss of smart mailboxes (recovery...), re-configuring all my mailboxes and so on and so on. Spending plenty of hours of hacking... Instead of using a high-end professional machine with its own OS as a real professional staff.

It would be great that Apple be proud about the OS quallity instead of political and social issues, incomes and emojis...

Your case seems to be similar to mine.

By any chance, have you set Calendar to sync with google service?

At any rate, when such thing happens can you try to quit from Safari and reboot? Even better, before shutting down OSX quit Safari so that it will not launch at OS start.

It still doesn't fix the problem but don't uncheck Mail. You need to click on the "Options" button to the right of iCloud Drive, then uncheck Mail.app

Your problem is outside the realm of this topic so you would do better by starting your own thread along with an Etrecheck app report

If simply logging out and logging back in reducing CPU usage for ~24 hours (give or take) then maybe that's a Cheap solution? It is inconvenient but preferable to the slow-as-molasses alternative...

I just installed App Tamer..slower processing , but the fans are off . Oh Happy Days :)