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.
Continuing my earlier post (can't edit): I tried another experiment. Turn off all networking, the firewall reports all requests to sylvan.apple.com stopped (of course). However, in Activity Monitor, the idleassetsd process CPU usage still spiked, and if I killed the process, it still came back, and still continued to spin doing something and was the highest-cpu-using process on the list. Doing nothing.
I am seeing my Mac mini get physically hotter than usual, and when I run speed.cloudflare.com and other windows in Safari I actually see screen flickers I've never seen before (GPU too hot? weird) - maybe my hardware is failing independent of this issue?
Can someone file a bug report on idleassetsd network hog to apple - I can't figure out where to do that? I no longer have support on this machine. And, if it's a TV iOS feature, but reported and manifests under MacOS (where I see it ), will it get lost in the clouds?
Having the same issue although the idleassetsd process downloaded 3.83 TB of data in less that 24 hours these severely spiking my data costs. Would love to find a solution that will work and not lead to other downstream issues. For now I have turn off dynamic wallpapers hoping that will help.
Oh yes, and one other thing. When this thread started, I set my wallpaper and screen savers to a static image (photo album). So I don't know what tripped it back on again. For you who say this "worked" for them, wait until the next time you upgrade the OS and see if it sticks.
I suspect any time Apple releases new higher-def versions of screen savers or releases an OS update, this idiot daemon will go out and grab them. I'm about to upgrade to Sequoia 15.0.1. I hope my SSD has enough room, it has 225GB in use out of 250GB and I suspect it won't fit, if only I could free up 60GB of space..... This is absurd. This storage hog has the potential to brick their older hardware?
I've upgraded to Sequoia OS and the problem continues, and the downloads by idleassetsd still have not finished on my slow DSL. Also, I am observing that if the network is shut off entirely while it is trying to download screen saver movies, the process CPU thread load drops back, it doesn't heat up my MacMini, but it does exhibit an out-of-control memory leak. Activity Monitor -> Memory shows an ever-increasing memory load by idleassetsd, it rises to top memory user and always increases.
BTW, this thread title also tags nurlsessiond, but that has never been an issue for my system, just idleassetsd. Since this thread is tagged to the Sonoma OS, I'll continue sending my experience with idlessetsd to a new thread under Sequoia OS at this thread:
"High bandwidth demands by idleassetsd continues with Sequoia"
High bandwidth demands by idleassetsd ***… - Apple Community
I selected a picture wallpaper but idleassetsd is still showing as using 50% of my CPU (M1 Mac Mini), it isn't downloading anything but it has written 1 terabytes since I restarted the mini yesterday. How do I disable this rogue process??
Well, unless there is an ISP Data Cap on your Internet subscription.
The temp solution you have enabled may or may not have negative repercussions system wide
Sorry That doesn't work at all, All the time it was on low data mode, working fine with Ventura, But this is not apply with this and this screen savers gives bad experiences
Then how to stop that
Turning on LowData did not help me. Even after cycling WiFi. Even after rebooting the MacMini. idleassetsd does not seem to respect any Low Data Mode constraint. (Sonoma 14.4.1)
Good!!! But it is not a solution. if you update OSX it will pop up and consume data back again.
DenBay wrote:
my problem solved. i used fast internet in one week. download is finished
Yes. I’m having this experience too. Lots of data consuming. Please Apple help…
Yes, I agree. Apple, come on. This is nuts. Is there no way to stop the downloads?
This did work for me, thank you
This solution finally worked for me, but I had to let the previously started download run its course. Yes, 60gb gone, and killed my internet packaged for the month.
How to stop this can you explain me
High Band With "idleassetsd" & "nsurlsessiond" back ground process
