'Photos' using significant energy when app not in use

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, ALK_95.

If we understand your post correctly, the Photos app is using battery power even when you're not actively using the app. We’d like to help.

Are you using iCloud Photos with your MacBook Air? The syncing process could be using energy when you start up.

If that doesn't explain the energy use, try testing for the issue in safe mode. Safe mode will tell us if the issue is related to a startup item or plugins, and sometimes corrects the issue.

This article will tell you how to start in safe mode: How to use safe mode on your Mac

Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Take care.

Try Updating to 11.2.3 and come back with results. If you really want to see if Photos is the source of your issue - Open Activity Monitor >> View >> View ALL processes. If Photos is there - it will show up. Note: There are several processes connect to Photo but with different names.

While in Activity Monitor >> View >> View All processes - Top Right Corner is a Search Box and type the Photo. You will see anything connect to the work Photo.

What you're seeing is Photos background activity identifying faces and objects, i.e. chairs, cars, dogs, etc. Photos checks each frame of each video for the same faces and objects. Depending on the size of your library it can take a fair amount of time to fully complete the evaluation.

Obviously it's not using any energy, memory or cpu time when the Mac is shut down.

I have a similar issue. usually I just put my MacBook Pro M1 to sleep, and it is fairly new too like 3 weeks old. Suddenly this past 12 hours, the battery is like 93% when I put it to sleep and never used it after 12 hours when I opened it, it was 12% and that never happened before since I bought it 3 weeks ago. I checked the battery and it said "photos is using significant energy" though I never opened the app. iCloud is set to - OFF on photos. Checked force quit and nothing in the background is running so I don't know what's going on with it.

I have the same issue, Apple Photos using significant energy but phots app is not running.

Hi, Not using iCloud Photos, this issue has been going on for months and contacted apple support in the past, done all of the safe mode test but still having the issue.

I also have the same issue not using iCloud photos, don’t even have photos in my album. I’m worried Big Sur may be the cause since I didn’t have any issues with draining battery until I updated.