It has been noticed that all of my data packages "idleassetsd" consumed in one day 60GB first date, 2nd 30 and now running with 14GB, apart from this "nsurlsessiond" also consumes lot of data,
Is there any solution for this? this is very annoying after Sonoma update. altogether 193GB of consumed
iMac 21.5″, macOS 14.1
I had this issue on Sonoma. I used some basic methods to see the unencrypted content, and it was due to screen savers/wallpapers. The thing is, I clicked on them and ultimately did not use them, so it would seem that it triggered a background download of a ton of large high-def video files, regardless of the fact that they are no longer selected (and they continue to download). It doesn't bother me, as it seems to throttle itself down when other traffic starts to show up, so I haven't noticed any slowdown. I can see the video files consuming hard disk space (I took a snapshot, let it sit, took another, and compared the difference (please don't tell me that there are a million better ways of doing that. I was doing it for another issue primarily).
Edit:
I found a SQLite database of what it is downloading. However, I wouldn't mess with that without talking to Apple Support first.
You can run lsof if you are comfortable with the terminal. Here is what mine showed:
user@computer ~ % lsof | grep -i idle
Wallpaper 581 user 4r REG 1,4 481292429 5366651 /Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer/4KSDR240FPS/097CA871-A1C2-40F7-97F0-EFAABF555BBC.mov
If you prefer using a GUI, there is a great free program that basically visualizes the lsof output. The utility is Sloth.
Note that it takes "snapshots" and is not a monitor (although you can have it refresh at certain intervals).
Output From Sloth:
Note that in both cases, the output can be very large, which is why I used "grep -i idle" and searched in Sloth (I highlighted the search box in the top right).
I would not recommend blocking this connection in any way. The OS uses this to download many things. I would figure out exactly what it is downloading and work from there. Otherwise, you may have issues in the future when the OS is trying to download something that you do want, but it is blocked. Additionally, it will continue to try to connect and download and continue to fail, which would be undesirable.
Disable live wallpapers, that fixed it for me.
if idealassetd process is consuming heavy data, try this setting, go to screensaver and change the Shuffle All option to Every Day or Higher as below.
idleassetsd is used by the TVIdleServices framework for asset downloading and privileged operations. It is used by various clients in macOS. It is not meant to be invoked directly.
This indicates it's coming from tvOS and indeed used for downloading animated wallpapers.
Credits to ➡️ Esquared ⬅️ for below and I Copy and Paste the reply
" nsurlsessiond is the process that is used by iCloud to sync your iCloud Drive/Photos/Contacts/etc between your machine(s) and the iCloud server. A lot of people seem to have issues with it: a simple search for nsurlsessiond on this site will give numerous results, but no quick fixes I'm afraid. Anything that uses iCloud Drive - including third party applications - might be implicated. "
My solution was to install Snail from Murus. Since I can't stop it, and stuck with 22mbps DSL, I can throttle that process so that it trickles down and doesn't interfere with the rest of the network traffic.
I tried below steps and stopping the process within 1 minute by killing through crontab setting -
open terminal then
sudo crontab -e
add Below lines in your text editor :
*/1 * * * * pkill -f idleassetsd
*/1 * * * * pkill -f nsurlsessiond
Another update, I am upgraded to Sonoma 14.7 OS, and the problem persists.
This time IdleAssetsD downloaded 62GBytes of lovely 4K video wallpaper.
I found my system was getting hot again (many days after the upgrade) because I denied (with LittleSnitch firewall) the process idleassetsd from reaching out to sylvan.apple.com only. The process was holding 160% CPU threads and box got hot. Once I allowed access, the thing hogged my DSL line loading and loading and loading.
Once I moved the box to a place with fiber internet, I let it finish the 62GB download.
I found where SOME of the files live, anyways, from reading a reddit thread:
/Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer/4KSDR240FPS
A bunch of, I deduce, 4K 240 frames per second standard definition.
But this directory has only 12GB of files, so I have to wonder where the rest of the 62GB download went to.
Still broke. Still needs fixing.
In this screengrab, activity monitor shows the download total size since it started yesterday. The lower part shows the LittleSnitch monitor of the download. only 38G was downloaded on fiber. Mind you, I cannot watch Apple TV or do other things when this download is happening in the background (DSL again)..
1. Disable live wallpapers is one solution,
2. rest Please read above adding the LuLu network monitor and blocking the "idleassetsd" & "nsurlsessiond" background processes, this won't affect anything so far away.
3. Otherwise, you may need to download everything using fast internet. after downloading do not delete those files. remember it takes more hard disk space. if you are concerned about disk space, you should disable those not to access your internet. see below screenshot it is stopped and working fine
I have found that setting Low Data Mode on my network (wifi) connection does nothing to stop IdelAssetsD from hogging the connection. By the way, if I use ethernet wired direct to my DSL modem, the ethernet settings don't seem to have anything called "low data mode", just the WiFi network settings have this. At least I didn't find it on the Ethernet side.
IdelAssetsD does not respect the Low Data Mode wifi setting, it does not throttle down the rate at which it grabs data, and it does not stop downloading. If the daemon is blocked by LittleSnitch firewall from reaching sylvan.apple.com, it simply pumps out 1000 requests per second (all denied), the thread CPU usage drives to 160%, and the MacMini heats up considerably. Forever.
This is on my rural DSL line that has 4Mbit down / 512k up.
This problem seemed to go away a while back, but with an upgrade to Sonoma 14.7 OS the thing started downloading more screen savers: 60GBytes of 4K wallpaper videos.
Now, I've upgraded from Sonoma 14.7 to Sequoia 15.0.1
Before upgrading, I deleted 12GB of screen saver files in
/Library/Application Support/com.apple.idleassetsd/Customer/4KSDR240FPS
After the upgrade to Sequoia, then IdleAssetsD got back to its usual network-hog behavior.
I still have not figured out where the extra 50GB of screen savers are being stored.
But here is a hint.
Can someone who knows look at the Property List at
/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TVIdleScreen/TVIdleScreenSnapshotLog.plist
What I see there are the same directories and filenames that are being downloaded.
Can I edit this Plist safely, I'm not the expert to try this?
Maybe switch from 4K 240FPS big files to download low-res files that take less space?
Maybe satisfy the daemon by just deleting all but one video from the plist?
Maybe disable this download altogether?
Other users have said IdleAssetsD will only download the video if selected in wallpaper or screen saver. Not true in my experience on Sonoma. I've not selected any of these items and they all are downloading, if I delete them they just re-download.
And although these items are not selected on my system, I do have an Apple TV in the house.
If my Apple TV is downloading these too, separately, it's no wonder I have such poor performance using Apple TV even set to a lower-res display. I've taken now to unplugging my Apple TV power when not in use, and logging out or disconnecting the network on my Mac mini.
Image below is the download in progress after upgrade to Sequoia 15.0.1
I have this issue too. It’s downloading more than 100GB and won’t stop. I selected a static wallpaper and screensaver, but it continues downloading. I blocked internet access for idleassetsd using the LuLu app. After that, idleassetsd seems to hang, using 60% of my M1 CPU and filling up all my RAM. Right now, I’ve written a shell script to repeatedly kill the process so I can use my device. This is a bad situation and needs to be fixed.
From the first instance I used to block this "idleassetsd" & "nsurlsessiond" service and finally it stopped downloading the movie files and sofar away it didnt gave me any problem even I update to Sequoia and I think this is the best solution for it.
my advice is if you need to go ahead with live wall papers use 3rd party wallperper service like "my Wallpaper" and end this berden for all.
Just curious what does 127.0.0.1 signify, does it result in a noop?
When I deny access using the LS firewall, idleassetsd does something else later on, when it wakes up: On my mac mini it generates 1000 network access requests per second, and never stops. Idleassetsd seems to require completion as measured by download of specific files. Seems if network connection blocked by LS the daemon code just spins on “try again,” which is a bug (no delay before retry). The process becomes the top-consumer cpu thread, the computer gets quite hot all the time. Apple’s killing my mac mini by baking it.
I’ve got to where I won’t leave this machine powered up 24/7 in the living room. Shut off when not in use. Annoying as it’s my music server too.
my problem solved. i used fast internet in one week. download is finished
and also try freeing up harddisk
Continuing my earlier post (I can't seem to edit now) Oh yes, and FWIW, I also have set Network -> WiFi -> (network name) Details -> Low Data Mode = "On", and restarted WiFi again on the network. Does not seem to make a difference to idleassetsd, it kept plugging away hogging bandwidth. Maybe *that* is the bug report here - consumes all BW even on slow network access. And stop hogging CPU at 1,000 requests PER SECOND.
This is on a 2018 Mac mini, 3 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5, running Sonoma 14.4.1
High Band With "idleassetsd" & "nsurlsessiond" back ground process
