Accountsd process using huge amounts of CPU and memory

I really don't know why you're giving him —and us— that hollow and scripted answer —from which we're quite tired of. The reality is that there a good amount of people that has this issue after updating to Catalina, and probably there are more our there, but they don't know they have it, even more since these days internet is so ubiquitous.

The issue, at least in my case, arrises when I leave mail app open, I close the lid of the computer and the computer loses internet connexion —at it should, since it was a tethered connection from my phone. I guess that the computer wake ups in power nap mode —if you have this feature enabled on the power settings— doesn't fine any network connection and goes crazy.

I guess that a work around is to disable power nap or close mail app if there is not internet.

I have exactly the same problem since moving to Catalina (I even had waited for 15.1) and I have been working on trying to resolve this since WEEKS. It's the worst problem I've ever experienced on a Mac in 20+ years. It affects my productivity enormously, because I need Apple Mail as a client.

I've spent numerous hours with support, performing all of the typical tasks they request. We could reproduce it under safe mode, with a new user, and also deleting lots of things in the libraries did not lead to any sustainable change.

Due to this (OK, and the new keyboard) I've even decided to immediately move to a new full-spec MacBook Pro 16" from my late 2018 (!) full-spec MacBook Pro. Interestingly, after migrating it was gone and performed well for something like a week until I added a certificate because I had to decrypt an encrypted e-mail that I had received in the past and was readable on my "old" 2018 MacBook Pro. Since adding the certificate, the problem was back on the new machine, so it seems to be related to certificates. I've tried to delete as much keychain data as possible related to my mail accounts (the problem it seems to be Exchange related) and I also removed the certificate from the keychain. Interestingly, the problem persisted even after removing the certificate. One thing I also noticed is, that one e-mail related certificate seems to come back automatically, even if I've deleted it. But this certificate is not the certificate I had needed for decrypting.

Following the final instructions here (https://buymymonkey.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/osx-catalina-cpu-spike-checking-mail-after-upgrade/) brought some days of relief. But now it's back, so maybe it's just a question of time and me adding the certificate just coincided with the problem occuring again. But I personally dont think so, because accountsd is keychain related and this would be a very big coincidence.

It's really frustrating. Even three calls with 2nd level (sadly, with three different people) didn't help. I had to redo many, many things even though I informed them what I had performed in the past on their request. In the end, the last agent just made very unprofessional (and obviously wrong) assumptions about the cause and told me to contact Microsoft, because it's not Apple's fault, also AppleCare just is a hardware guarantee, and with reinstalling everything my problem would be gone.

They just ignored that due to moving to the new computer I was able to pinpoint a possible cause of this - in my opinion - huge problem which clearly is some system bug. Also, no one was able to explain why the deleted certificate keeps coming back.

I'm really surprised that within spending multiple hours in high level support no one ever wanted to look into console or process info which might give clues what it relates to. Sadly, I'm not able to decipher the system information, but I'd say there's lots of indications on errors visible in console.

Apple needs to do something with this problem.

Obviously it's affecting more people than just me, in exactly the same way.

I have the same problem even with the new 10.15.4. A couple of Gmail and Exchange accounts in Mail. As soon as the internet connections goes away accountsd and Mail start hogging RAM and CPU to a max. This can easily be provoked by switching off the Wifi connection. Apple, please fix this soon.

Hi blcmildmay,

Thank you for using the Apple Support Communities! I understand you're running into a performance issue with your Mac when it comes to using your Mail app, and I'd like to help.

It sounds like you did a good job identifying the relation between the high CPU process and the Mail app. Have you tried resetting the SMC: How to reset the System Management Controller (SMC) on your Mac - Apple Support. If not, give that a go. If the issue remains, continue below.

Let's have you boot up into safe mode. It’s a way to start up your Mac so it performs certain checks, repairs, emptying of system cache, and prevents some software from automatically loading: Use safe mode to isolate issues with your Mac - Apple Support. Once in safe mode, check to see if the same behavior continues when using the Mail app online and offline. Sometimes safe mode can successfully resolve some issues. With this being said, after testing in safe mode, restart and log in as normal to see if that helps resolve the behavior.

If it continues, I will have you test a new user account next, to isolate if this is a user-specific issue, or a system-wide issue. Here’s how: How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac - Apple Support. Based on the results in the new user, you could continue to the section titled 'If the issue doesn't happen in the other account' or 'If the issue happens in the other account' to continue troubleshooting.

Keep me posted on the results and status of this behavior.

Regards.

blcmildmay,

Thanks for updating to the latest macOS!

I understand how impacting a behavior like this can be, especially when you need access to your important emails throughout the day in varied environments.

Testing in safe mode and a new user can be helpful in determining if this is a system-wide issue, or user-specific issue. This helps determine the best way to move forward with troubleshooting as well.

Due to the nature of your issue, I would like you to reach out directly to Apple Support, so they can continue investigating this specific behavior further. Feel free to run through safe mode and new user steps, so you can provide the results to Apple Support once you are speaking with them. Use this link to reach out: Contact - Official Apple Support.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards.

If you haven't already, I would suggest making sure you have documented the issue using Apple's Feedback portal for Mail.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html

If you're running the general release version of the OS, you can call Apple Technical support and try to work through the issue with them.

Our question now is… can't you reproduce or what is going? I mean… go to safe mode and/or create a new user account, it's quite troublesome. If one of your technicians and/or programmer try to reproduce is going to be easier than doing everything in our side.

Other thing is, you can't reproduce…

Hey!

I really would like to know if you really have the same problem or just a similar one related to accountsd. I mean… I was reading the post on the site you shared and I don't have any of those things. I don't have a gosht keychain and the computer work well and the accountsd has a normal behavior if you don't have exchange mail account enabled in mail and no connection.

I just disabled my exchange mail —just the mail— and everything work well even with mail open and no connection. At least in my case the problem is pretty specific to Exchange mail accounts on Mail app on Catalina.

What is going on, at least in my opinion is, mail just enters in a loop when you have a exchange account and no connection and try to connect to the server all the time.

You know... for the sake of testing, I create a new account and also tested in safe mode... you know what? The issue is still there. so please fix this issue that is probably related with exchange accounts on mail app.

Thanks

I also did not have a ghost keychain. Also, it seems like the problem is gone as soon as I disable a certain exchange account. And yes, I also was able to reproduce it on a new user.

I think we have exactly the same problem.

The problem just was temporarily resolved when I was applying the actions suggested in the blog post's last amendment. As far as I remember I deleted the account details in the keychain and removed and re-added the mail accounts.

I have exactly the same. MacBook Pro 16 inch.

When opening mail, accountsd is consuming a lot of memory, CPU and also drains my battery. Charging with the new 95watt takes also ours.

The weird thing is, it happens a lot of times, but I havent discovered a pattern.

I've had this problem on a 2017 15.4" MacBook Pro and 2019 16" MacBook Pro both running the latest version of Catalina and it happens regardless of whether or not I'm connected to the Internet. I manage A BUNCH of e-mail accounts using Apple's Mail.app.

1 iCloud

3 Exchange/Office 365

8 Gmail

1 Yahoo!

1 IMAP/SMTP

I did a little experimenting and have found that accountsd and Mail.app behave "normally" when I'm ONLY using it to manage my iCloud account. I have Outlook from Office 365 managing my Exchange/Office 365 accounts. I use Thunderbird to manage my GMAIL, Yahoo! and IMAP/SMTP accounts. Everything EXCEPT my iCloud account was removed from the System Preferences -> Internet Accounts pane. I've been running this way for the last five days and performance has been great.

In this time I have NEVER seen either Thunderbird or Outlook 365 consume > 100% CPU. Their "Memory" usage seems to stay around 512 MB (Thunderbird) and 741 MB (Outlook). My fan NEVER runs.

Today, I added one Office 365 account back to Mail.app (I'm still using Outlook 365) and since doing that, performance seems to be OK.

I've been running with Mail.app configured to poll my three Exchange-based accounts in addition to my iCloud account for about a week and I am NOT seeing the same performance problem.

I just added all my Gmail-based accounts to Mail.app; however, when I went to the System Preferences -> Internet Accounts pane, I used the "Add Other Account..." option. I created app passwords for each of my Gmail-based accounts and configured them as IMAP/SMTP accounts. We'll see how that goes.

I suspect the problem is Gmail accounts that are using the OAUTH2 authentication. Perhaps the accountsd daemon is constantly trying to renew the OAUTH2 token?

I don't know but you're the first case I've seem that it's saying that it's google. Anyhow, this problem is very specific. The huge amount of CPU usage happens when you have an exchange account, mail is open and you are out of internet connection.

I've posted a link to macrummors forum were there are a couple of methods to fix it.

If you are just seeing huge amount of CPU usage on the normal operation of mail —without dropping the internet connection— it's just a totally different problem.

The problem with Exchange accounts arouse, at least in my case, after the upgrade to Catalina. So it could perfectly be related to the update itself that mess up the settings, since it can be fixed deleting the settings totally —following the instructions on macrummors forum— and setting the account up again.

I don't think that the problem is very specific.

All solutions are temporary and users are doing work arounds. Also the macrumors topic you're pointing to is the same, but no solution.

In my case, I only have self hosted Exchange mailadressen, imap, iCloud and gmail. So no Office365. Accountsd is consuming so much CPU that it even drains my battery with powernap setting off when I close the lit. When I close mail.app, everything works fine. So my workaround is killing AccountsD or restarting mail (depends on what I'm doing).

Maybe related to the problem, I have migrated to the new MBP 16 model with Time Machine backup from 10.14 to 10.15. I've migrated another MBP 16 with USB-C target disk from 10.14 to 10.15 and has the same mail configuration without problems.

Also I've removed all mailaccounts and keychains and other suggestions like disabling and enabling accounts, but no effect after all.