What causes Searchpartyd to use High CPU resources?

searchpartyd and searchpartyagent are two parts of the Find My system that helps locate Apple devices that don’t have actual GPS or network connection.

The CPU use is understandable because it is looking through all the Bluetooth traffic your computer can see, finding the ones that are Apple Find My messages, and sending those off to Apple (and if it so happens that someone is looking for a device that happens to be in range of your computer, Apple will also send back the signal to “make a sound” or whatever which your computer will then pass on to the missing device). So the only real way to stop the CPU use is to turn off bluetooth so it doesn’t see that traffic, and those processes will have nothing to process.

I plugged my trackpad into my computer and turned off bluetooth and the CPU use went to zero as expected. I realize this may not be the solution for everyone (I use wired headphones on my desktop too!), so I tried a few others. With mixed results.

Killing the searchpartyd process from the Terminal a couple of times. In my tests, the CPU use tends to spike again after killing it once, but drops to what I would consider normal levels (0.2% CPU) after killing it a second time.

Since both searchpartyd and searchpartyagent are run by the system, you’ll have to use sudo to kill it. E.g.:

## to get the process IDs
ps -ax|grep searchparty 

## kill command with process ID should work, you can add "-9" if you want to simulate pulling the power plug
sudo kill ### (process #)

I just realized I didn’t toggle Bluetooth. I was so happy turning it off worked I just never turned it back on, so perhaps that’s a solution too. Best of luck.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

Also give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE 1: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

NOTE 2: if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode. This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will insure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

kimandmat wrote:

Hello all,

I've recently run into searchpartyd being the hungriest thread on my Activity Monitor. All day, all night, it's using up almost 100% of 1 efficiency core.

I'm up to date, I've rebooted… no luck. I've turned off Find My, and turned it back on, no luck. (It appears to be related to Find My.)

Does anyone have an idea about this hungry monster?

Try signing out of iCloud and back in again...

Sign out of iCloud on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, or Mac - Apple Support

Q - " Does the user have options to control the process? "

A - No - Predicated on the process is running as " Root User " that is residing in the  Sealed and Read Only Volume that can not be opened by the User nor by Third Party Applications.

The only Entity that can open and modify or alter this Volume is Apple.

A - Download the Application Etrecheck directly from the Developer.

This is a Diagnostic Tool that makes no changes to the computer.

It makes a coherent and readable inventory of both the Hardware and Software used on the computer 

The application is free or paid from added features. 

The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information. 

Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - >>>> using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last ) <<<<

I have the same issue. None of the recommendations helped. I have searchpartyhd process always active for weeks already, draining energy and heating my mbpro 14 m1. Killing the process doesn't help, as it returns back to life after 1sec.

The only workaround I found for myself is a shell script which tries to kill searchpartyhd process in for loop constantly. But this is so ugly that I'm embarrassed even to talk about this.

I'm not sure they don't, but if not, Apple should have a published manifest with descriptions of file purposes.

I just Googled it and a Google search "answer snippet" says it's a malicious program. I not sure that's true.

I Googled: "systemgroup.com.apple.icloud.searchpartyd.sharedsettings.plist" (sans quotes).

The searchpartyd daemon is a legitimate part of the operating system. It and its related agent live in /usr/libexec and can’t be tampered with unless you turned of SIP. There is very, very, little chance that Google was correct in calling it malware, but it is easy enough to verify that it is running from /usr/libexec to remove any doubt.



Same thing here. searchpartyd taking up to 100% CPU (one core), and draining the battery of my M3 MBP (which goes down from ~18 hours to ~3 hours !).

I've restarted a few times. Signed off my iCloud account and back again. Turned off localisation processes. Force killed the process several times. All to no avail. It keeps coming back.

What should I do ?

Thanks in advance for any hints !

Alexis

Did you find a solution?