Accountsd Mac cpu is high

OK, so this worked for me.

1. Go to "~/Library/Accounts"
2. Rename Accounts4.sqlite to Accounts4.sqlite.backup

CPU immediately went back to normal. Didn't need to logout out of Apple ID, or restart. Just that file rename did it. Thread here - https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/j05c8e/user_reports_show_that_macos_10157_clogs_up_the/

I chatted with Apple Support and they told me to do the following:

1. disable all the apps linked with my email accounts from System Preferences > Internet Accounts
2. perform a NVRAM/PRAM reset
3. enable the linked apps again

The image below shows the apps that can be enabled for each email account. For example here you see the Mail app enabled for my Exchange email.

I was like "yeah, for sure such a common troubleshooting suggestion like the NVRAM reset will work..."

Guess what? It worked.

Now I am signed in with my Apple ID and my Mac is not taking off anymore. I will report here if the problem comes back after some time.

Got the exact same issue with accountsd using very high CPU making my whole MacBook Late 2013 unresponsive on 10.15.7.

I tried a few things suggested in the forum as:

• Restarting in Safe Mode
• Deactivating my Emails Accounts
• Logging out from iCloud and logging back in again all with no success

What solved my issue ultimately was to turn my wifi off (Click Wifi icon top right, than 'Turn Wi-Fi Off') and turned it back on right after.

I let the Activity Monitor running while doing this and the effect was immediate

I tested it with a normal restart and two days later everything is still running smooth.

You may have a try as this is quick test and may or may not work for your case, hope it can help.

Regards

I just solved the problem for my case.

1.) log off and remove any Internet account (icloud, gamecenter, mail, etc.)

2.) sing out from apple account

3.) restart

4.) sing in again everywhere

problem disappears ...

I experienced the exact same thing with 500%+ CPU use coming from “accountsd “. However I seem to have found the issue. It had to do with my Apple ID.

I logged out and the computer cooled down and the CPU usage went straight back to normal levels.

I then logged back in and the CPU use fired up towards 3-400% again, but quickly went down to normal levels once again.

I have not had this problem happen again after I logged out then back in.

Hope this works for you!

I just updated to Catalina last month. Everything was running smooth and fine under 10.15.6.

I did the 10.15.7 update yesterday first through the normal way --> system preferences - Software update and then the trouble with the accountsd-proces has also begun. There was nothing that worked from all the suggestions above, except for installing the combo update from 10.15.7. C'mon Apple!! Why does this online combo update apparently have an extra fix/feature that resolves this issue?? Why don't you simply release this update for E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E through the normal way, djeezes!

Anyway, my sincere thanks to cavemees for bringing up this solution/workaround which...doesn't make sense but what the heck, it works :-)

Thanks to Phillip from support, I had finally solved this issue, cause' nothing else worked.

From the macOS Recovery mode (turn on laptop, then press and Cmd+R until you see startup screen) I went to Utility>Hard Disk>First Aid(Repair). Then reinstalled macOS.

It took some time for me, but so far - everything works properly, issue has gone.

Jean-Philippe's method that makes use of the third party app OnyX worked for me. Thank you!

I can confirm that the issue is probably due to some cache files that should have been automatically removed with the 10.15.7 update. Agree also on the "WTF Apple?"

In summary:

• update to macOS 10.15.7
• install OnyX and perform a maintenance job using Jean-Philippe's settings

After the automatic reboot the Mac should be back to normal behavior.

I had this issue with 10.15.6. A reboot did not solve this issue so the next thing I tried was to update to 10.15.7. But in my case that didn't help.

My solution was to remove the login keychain ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain-db and reboot, so that the login keychain is newly created.

Caution: Rename this file e.g. to login-old.keychain-db, because this file contains all your stored password. You can open the file later in the keychain and look up the passwords.

I have just run the Onyx Maintenance tasks on the caches, System and Applications, and after the reboot, the accountsd process seems to behave nicely again. FWIW: I had previously also unchecked the "Find My" option in the iCloud settings, which also seems to have done the trick. However, if you need that function, it could be best to simply download Onyx and run those maintenance tasks that rebuild the caches and clean the System and Applications.

I confirm that reinstalling 10.15.7 update via the combo download fixed the problem on my Late 2013, 13 inch Retina Macbook Pro.

Thanks @cavemees for the tip.

It seems that renaming the sqlite file helps

rename /Users/xxx/Library/Accounts/Accounts4.sqlite to /Users/XXX/Library/Accounts/Accounts4.sqlite.bak

a new file is created the mac starts to work again

rename /Users/xxx/Library/Accounts/Accounts4.sqlite.bak to /Users/xxx/Library/Accounts/Accounts4.sqlite

(try in command line with mv command)

Everything seems back to normal

I switched off "commerce" in the Activity Monitor, as recommended on another blog, and that resolved the issue. accountsd CPU usage immediately dropped from 400% to 200%...then eventually went to near zero after about 15 minutes. Have to see if I need to do it again after my next cold boot.

I had this problem too. Notice that your CPU Time is 33:28,97 for that process. Assuming that you made the update in that time interval, it seems that the accountsd process didn't restart itself when the update was made.

I was able to fix this by simply logging out of my current account, which made the accountsd process to restart.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,