What is photolibraryd doing using 20-40% of my CPU at all times for months now, how do I stop it?

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Level 1

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What is photolibraryd doing using 20-40% of my CPU at all times for months now, how do I stop it?

I've researched this extensively, I often see some saying it can run for days to weeks for identifying people in your photo library for the people tab. I saw this answer months ago, telling me to wait it out, and so I did. Yet months later, my CPU is still regularly being dragged by this process. At the very least it has been running for months, possibly longer. I don't even often use the Photos app on my MacBook, though it is nice to have and I would rather not remove it. I have an Early 2015 MacBook Pro and this is started to cause a noticeable performance drop.

As I went to take a screenshot I now see a photoanalysisd that I have also heard about. My MacBook can't function properly with these.

My OS is up to date on macOS Catalina Version 10.15.3

What are my options here?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 19, 2020 7:18 AM

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Answer 1

Camelot

Level 9

59,581 points

Feb 19, 2020 9:07 AM in response to joeyh96

Technically, it hasn't been running for months - the CPU Time column indicates it's been running for a couple of hours of CPU time (about 6 hours real-world given that it's using 40% of the CPU).

Did something happen a few hours ago? Did you reboot? upgrade the OS?

If you upgrade the OS, the process may restart due to refinements in the algorithms used for photo analysis.

The other option is that there is some problem with one or more of your photos which is breaking the flow, causing it to restart.

At this point the best thing to do is keep an eye on it an watch that time and see if you can establish if it is running continuously, or if/when it is restarting.

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Answer 2

LD150

Level 10

103,792 points

Feb 19, 2020 9:55 AM in response to joeyh96

Photolibraryd is because you have iCloud photos and you have upgraded to Catalina

I dont use iCloud photos or photostream so I don't see it

People were worried about the same thing when upgrading to Sierra. It will finish eventually but will run if you add more photos to iCloud

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Answer 3

Feb 19, 2020 9:01 AM in response to joeyh96

Face and object analysis of your Photos in iPhoto Library.

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Answer 4

joeyh96 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 19, 2020 9:51 AM in response to Camelot

Yes, technically this instance of photolibraryd has not been running for months because I update, restart and shutdown my computer. Time to time I even force quit it, to no success. Correction, It has been running at all times that the computer is running for months possibly a year or more. I did restart 6 hours of use time ago to update, specifically to see if that would fix it. I nearly always keep my activity monitor open so I have been following it for a long time now. Before that update it had hundreds of hours of cpu time. I have search history looking for answers dating back months ago, and i've been watching it since. I can tell you that it is running at all times that the computer is running.

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Answer 5

LD150

Level 10

103,792 points

Feb 19, 2020 9:50 AM in response to Richard Cartledge

Photos library not iPhoto

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What is photolibraryd doing using 20-40% of my CPU at all times for months now, how do I stop it?

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