Accountsd process using huge amounts of CPU and memory

I really don't know what the heck you've checked in this thread / forum, but the solution was already posted and I can assure you, that at leas in my case it working and lasting. Actually there are not one but two solutions. One is a workaround and the other is permanent fix.

The fix is in this thread https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/accountsd-mail-process-and-cpu-usage.2212236/?post=28119300 and the work around is just use IMAP instead of exchange for the office accounts. You can use exchange for the calendar if you wish.

I don't know if it's your case, but if you have an exchange account and disable it things go back to normal. At least for me was like that.

I hope it helps!

The latest update to 10.15.5 (19F101) seems to solve this issue for me.

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.

Just got off the phone with Apple Support supervisor and was told that this is a known issue and current recommendation is to "quit the Mail app when not in use." 😔

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 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.

10.15.3 solves partly the problem. In 10.15.2, I experienced that the problem only solved when mail is closed or when accountsd is killed. Currently, I still have high CPU when using mail, but the issue solves without closing mail or killing accountsd.

Also, mail consumes (when spiking CPU) less power.

Another thing I've noticed, my battery lasts longer with 10.15.3

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.

I recommend you to read more or less the whole thread since there is a link to macrumors forum thread where someone posted a solution that works.

Hi all, could it be that the problem is resolved with the 10.15.6 update??

It seems like it's gone...

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…

After upgrading to macOS 10.15.3, I've reconfigured my Gmail-based accounts from IMAP/SMTP back to the official Gmail account type. After some initial CPU spikes as thousands of messages were downloaded from the existing mailboxes. After doing that, performance has remained similar to what it was when the applications were configured to use IMAP/SMTP.

I'm talking about this https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/accountsd-mail-process-and-cpu-usage.2212236/post-28102246.

At least for me it has provided a totally permanent solution unless you mess with the accounts again.