Accountsd Mac cpu is high

Used Onyx Standard maintenance procedure (everything but rebuilding mail and spotlight index). When logging into iCloud the login process almost hung up (menu freezes for 5 minutes and accountsd went to 500% cpu usage). After 5 more minutes accountsd cpu usage dropped to about 200%, did this for the next 4 hours, then I went to bed an shut down the system. This next day all troubles with Accountsd are gone, Macbook runs like a charm.

I rollback to version 10.15.6 through TimeMachine, I disable the iCloud account only for AppStore, and I stopped using Safari (only Chrome). After that, the problem was fixed (5 days ago and counting).

Please, Apple FIX THIS ISSUE asap.

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.

Hello,

same issue here but keeps going away and coming back ... not sure its something I am doing or just a few forced reboots.

Regarding your feedback, when you installed the Combo update were your already in 10.15.7 ? From my understanding if one is already at that version this update is just a reinstallation of what one already has right ?

By the way a few days ago when I removed an exchange account where I was syncing my contacts from the issue went away ... until it came back today. Again not sure it had to do with removing that account or just some reboots...

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.

The problem with this issue is, that it disappears almost always after a reboot. So regardless what tool or action you take, if the last step is reboot, you are never sure if it was the tool or the action you took or the reboot that solved the issue. So for the moment everything is just guessing and as long as Apple does not do anything we are stuck.

This is just crazy... we are here talking about workarounds and so on and no solution is out yet.

Being also a Windows user I never saw something like this ... it’s not a security or whatever issue ... it’s just people trying to use their Mac with iCloud or Office 365 accounts ...

OMG

I used to "use" Windows (right from version 3.0) - or should I say it was "using" me because it has always had a never-ending list of problems, a labyrinth of settings and options and tweaks that are all over the place where logic is replaced with insanity, and you could basically use 50% of your processing power and give away all the rest to anti-virus and anti-malware software.

The list of insane problems that still exist in Windows 10 is endless. Since I switched to Apple, Macs, and OS X in 2006, for the first time in my computing life, I could actually get some work done instead and drive the "car" instead of being its mechanic, constantly opening the hood and repairing the engine every second day.

The whole problem with Windows is that its code is based on something that was never meant to be used for "personal" computers but only for corporate business computing. In simple words: it's a car that needs a mechanic, not one that is happy with just a driver.

I am aware of the problem with accountsd since the 10.15.7 update and have solved it by using Onyx's Maintenance tasks taking care of the caches and cleaning up the basic applications - without any loss of data, without any re-occurrence of the problem, even after several reboots. Give it a try.

This is not the time for Apple fanboyism.

this is not a once-a-month blue screen error, this bricks up the computer and makes it unusable. Logging out of apple ID does not works for me anymore. My only option is to rename the sqlite file and possibly messing up the icloud sync feature until the next update.

everybody knows Catalina was full of bugs and did not contribute to our perception of what a Apple product should look like. This bug was the last drop in the bucket.

(by the way, if there is a problem on Windows, msft at least acknowledges it ASAP sometimes in hours! Apple is yet to speak about this subject!)

Oh, and I'm not an Apple fanboy. I'm a computer user from the early 1980s, having worked with DOS, Windows, and macOS, and having been a support engineer for WordPerfect. Apart from an iMac I still have a Windows 10 laptop, the CPU of which is taken over by anti-virus and anti-malware apps, allowing me to use 50% of its power for the tasks I want it to do. Every month I have two or three problems with it. If I have one problem with my iMac per year, I'm happy to logically conclude what is the best platform to use if you want to concentrate on working instead of on de-bugging.

If you use Little Snitch network monitor (you probably should) you can use that to deny the commerce process network access. At least for me this seems to have solved the problem, commerce is no longer downloads stuff continuously and this seems to have fixed whatever was going wrong with accountsd as well.

Has worked to keep the problem away since Oct 2 for me, without this Onyx tool (whatever that is supposed to do?), renaming/removing any system files, killing any processes or changing any iCloud settings.

Haven't encountered any other problems with this, but I'm guessing if I want to purchase something via the App Store I may need to allow commerce network access again.

Then I know why it is taking Apple engineers long to come up with a solution: The problem cannot easily be reduced to one particular configuration or setting. A large number of people have been able to make it go away by making Onyx clean up the caches and some applications, and/or switch off the "Find My..." option in the iCloud settings. Pity it didn't work for you.

It has been 5 years, but the problem still exists.

Something tells me that the reason for this time can be found.

Rockets fly into space several times, but if you update your computer, it can break.

This is definitely a good level.

I don't know what they have been observing for 5 years.

Perhaps they were looking at fire or water because nothing was done. :)

I googled and found messages that were 5 years old and in there people wrote about problems with this process.

In my case, I tried all the solutions suggested here and none worked—even temporarily. So I formatted and installed everything from scratch and only copied documents, photos, music, etc. I didn’t restore any settings, preferences, or other system files.

Since then all has been good.

I also wanted to point out that my accountsd issue started after using boot camp. So now I don’t bit into Windows anymore...