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newsd process on Big Sur downloading MASSIVE amounts of traffic

I was notified by my ISP that I was close to using my monthly allocated download limits in just the first few days of the month. Looking at my router's activity monitor I noticed that both my 2017 5K iMac and 2020 MacBook Air (M1) had significant amounts of unexplained network activity.

So I installed Little Snitch on both machines to monitor traffic and in just a couple days the newsd process on the iMac downloaded 375GB and the Mini downloaded 130GB.

And specifically the downloaded traffic occurred with hostnames apple.news and c.apple.news. Both have valid signed certificates by Apple according to Little Snitch.

Although I use the News app on my iPad I don't regularly use it on either Mac.

Has anybody else experienced this activity? I'm wondering if there is a bug in Big Sur or I possibly have some sort of malware masquerading as legitimate? A scan with Malwarebytes is clean on both machines.

Thanks in advance for for any suggestions.

iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 11.2

Posted on Dec 22, 2020 9:41 AM

Top-ranking reply

Robert Olding

Level 1

62 points

Posted on Jan 10, 2021 10:40 AM

I had the same problem on two Macs, a 2019 iMac and a late 2013 MacBook Pro. Both machines were downloading up to 90GB of data a day. I hit my data cap in 8 days. I talked to Apple Support and we looked at a number of things, and we kept coming back to the newsd process. So, on the iMac, I did a reinstall of Big Sur 11.1 and on the MacBook I turned off iCloud syncing for the News app in the System Preferences (iCloud Settings).

Turning off iCloud syncing for the News app is the thing that worked and stopped the bandwidth hogging.

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47 replies

Apr 13, 2021 1:55 PM in response to ho ho ho

GOOD LORD. I'm glad you mentioned that. We're on high speed cable, also bought the best modem there is. and yet recently I started noticing I was freezing up on online classes. My students got a kick out of it because my faces were apparently hysterical but it sucks to have to move to an iPhone when your expensive wifi won't work!

I bet it will tomorrow, though. THANK YOU for mentioning the internet crawl! I had not put two and two together!

ho ho ho

Level 1

18 points

Apr 13, 2021 3:06 PM in response to KaraMaddysMom

Had this problem for months. Just force quit it every time I restarted.

finally decided to take the medicine, took the plunge and planned to reinstall Mac OS X for the days fun.

but before that I just installed 4gb of updates to the latest version of OS X .

so far so good.

no newsd resurrecting itself.

no crawl.

fingers crossed.

recommend you try this first.

Jan 5, 2021 5:24 PM in response to paulfromminnetonka

I'm having the same problem, on both my iMac and MacBook, both running 11.1. had to pay to upgrade my data cap on xfinity over this! eesh

arnes

Level 1

14 points

Jan 9, 2021 2:32 PM in response to JordanGoody

I'm having this too. 40GB in 24 hours downloaded by "newsd" I'm surprised I can't find more posts about it. Seems like a pretty bad bug.

alexf123

Level 1

4 points

Jan 11, 2021 6:16 AM in response to Robert Olding

I have this same issue, surprising it is not more widely reported?

Birdtown

Level 1

4 points

Jan 11, 2021 7:09 AM in response to Robert Olding

I experienced the same issue and this worked. Thank you.

arnes

Level 1

14 points

Jan 13, 2021 12:24 PM in response to arnes

Reinstalling the system took a while but it's solved the problem (along with turning off news iCloud syncing).

alexf123

Level 1

4 points

Jan 21, 2021 1:16 PM in response to David Bizzarri

Mine is bringing 60 - 70GB per day. I spent 2 hours with Apple support and they could not fix it. It is a serious problem

Jan 21, 2021 1:20 PM in response to David Bizzarri

Turning off iCloud syncing worked for me!

Jan 26, 2021 8:20 AM in response to slammers2121

Apple needs to address this issue as it is costing people money.

it is a behind the scenes process that cannot be detected until it is too late in most cases.

Feb 4, 2021 4:40 AM in response to paulfromminnetonka

I installed macOS 11.2 and re-enabled iCloud syncing for News. The issue still persists.

Feb 9, 2021 4:29 AM in response to paulfromminnetonka

This is a MAJOR problem. I'm on the latest Big Sur and newsd process is costing me much money due to exceeding ISP data cap. This is an unacceptable bug. Fix this Apple.

Feb 9, 2021 4:35 AM in response to paulfromminnetonka

...and I am a PAID Apple News subscriber, so this is doubly unacceptable. Fix this.

Feb 18, 2021 10:16 AM in response to paulfromminnetonka

So I was forced to buy Little Snitch. I have blocked both News app and newsd there. I want to USE Apple News, so am I safe just to block newsd only? I wish Apple would acknowledge and fix this bug.

Feb 19, 2021 6:51 PM in response to Mark Vos

So did you only block newsd in Little Snitch. I have that and News blocked, but of course I want to USE the News app.

Is it still working?

newsd process on Big Sur downloading MASSIVE amounts of traffic