Spinning gear in menu bar

Charlie Giancarlo wrote:

I have a new icon in my menu bar that is a spinning gear. From what I am reading on various posts, it may be Automator that is causing this. But, I have not created any scripts for Automator. I upgraded to Big Sur many months ago, but this behavior only started in the last week. As you can see in the attached graphic, the drop down doesn't indicate what has created this icon.

Two questions...

1) Is there a way I can find what has created this icon and what it is doing, and

2) How do I stop this process if it is unnecessary.

Thanks,

Charlie

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/b20c8407-1a90-4a93-9c92-2661471cbb86

What happens if you Option click on the icon— any more insight?

Look at your Log-in items and see if something got added there:

>System Preferences>Users & Groups>Login Items.

Change Users & Groups Login Items preferences on Mac

Remove login items to resolve startup problems on your Mac

Open the Activity Monitor Application >> View >> View All processes and look in the CPU tab. Looking for Unusually High CPU usage by process or Application Name. Do the same in Memory Tab.

This may help identify the process or application involved.

Something that you have installed recently is using an Automator application or workflow to perform some functionality as part of that installed package. As I see some third-party menu bar content, I would start with that application package. If you are using any of the Finder Quick Actions (e.g. Create PDF), that would place the spinning gear on your menu bar for the duration of that action.