Level 2

330 points

Continued corespotlightd process CPU overload issues

I am wondering if anyone has discovered any new ideas for stopping the corespotlightd process from hogging the CPU. According to Activity Monitor, the corespotlightd process often occupies more than 100% of the CPU load, sometimes spiking as high as 400% on my M2 Ultra Mac Studio. This problem has become so severe that it often pinwheels under normally non-intensive tasks. It can cause the video to flicker on my Studio Display. In one case it caused my Mac to kernel panic (crash).

I encountered this bug only after installing Sequoia 15.2, but having researched this issue extensively, I find that Mac users have identified it since at least macOS Ventura. So here are some solutions we don't need to hear again:

Reindexing Spotlight by adding and removing volumes in Spotlight Privacy. This provides relief only temporarily. Within hours the process is again grinding the Mac to a halt.

Killing the corespotlightd in Activity Monitor. Again, this is at best only a temporary solution as the process will reinstate itself.

A "clean" install of macOS. First of all, no such process really exists. The OS recovery process simply reinstalls a new copy of the System files. Nobody reports this as a fix. An internal drive wipe and reformat, and restore from Time Machine is also unlikely to help, as it simply returns your Mac to its previous state. If the corespotlightd problem results from a corrupted file, the problem will likely simply be recreated in your reinstall. "Nuke and pave" might solve the problem if it caused by a format or directory issue on your startup volume. This does not seem to be the case, but if anyone has permanently cured the problem by this method, please report it.

What we do need to hear is from anyone who has spent time with Apple Support on this issue and been provided with solutions that actually work, or has new ideas about what causes it. Feels like we're on our own here, since Apple seems to be stumped.

Posted on Dec 19, 2024 11:21 AM

Top-ranking reply

ericmurphysf

Level 2

313 points

Posted on Feb 6, 2025 3:00 PM

luzggg wrote:

Currently trying this out to fix that bug myself, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. So I just want to make extra sure I got what you're saying. Now when you said deleting the metadata out of Corespotlight and SpotlightKnowledgeEvents, can I just delete everything inside those folders? Not working with Terminal here. Or keep the folders inside intact and just delete the lists and whatever is in there? Thanks!

When I spoke to Apple Support last week, the advisor suggested I delete the contents of the two folders (the entire contents, files and any subfolders; you don't need to go through each subfolder and laboriously delete its contents individually), but not the folders themselves. You don't need to do this from Terminal; you can just trash the files/subfolders from the Finder the way you would normally do it (just make sure you're in the User library, not the System library, which you can make visible on the "Go" menu in the Finder by holding down the Option key).

Other users have said they've been successful deleting the entire folders, contents and all, without ill effects. But having removed the folder contents themselves without deleting the actual folders, I've obtained satisfactory results all three times I've done it, on two different systems (twice on one of them).

Also note that the folder structure in the ~/library/metadata/ folder differs from Intel systems compared to Apple Silicon systems. On Intel systems, the CoreSpotlight/ folder and the SpotlightKnowledgeEvents/ folder are both at the root of the Metadata/ folder. On Apple Silicon systems, the SpotlightKnowledgeEvents/ folder is inside the CoreSpotlight folder. I have yet to try this fix on an Apple Silicon system since it hasn't been necessary for me, but it sounds like you can delete the entire contents of the CoreSpotlight/ folder without any problems.

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384 replies

BDAqua

Level 10

250,259 points

Jul 6, 2025 10:10 PM in response to sugarskyline

We don’t & wont know, unless Apple tells us or fixes it & somebody notices.

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

330 points

Aug 21, 2025 11:23 PM in response to VimCedar

I'd ask if you are experiencing degraded performance on your Mac, or if you are simply looking in the metadata folder and assuming its size is evidence of a problem.

Aug 25, 2025 10:34 PM in response to Mitch Stone

I am on 15.5 and have the same issue currently. Is anyone at Apple even looking at this?

KWiPod

Level 2

224 points

Aug 26, 2025 1:06 AM in response to KWiPod

But the post was removed because it refers to xxxx version of MacOS.

Sep 17, 2025 9:55 PM in response to Mitch Stone

Any improvements with Tahoe?

KWiPod

Level 2

224 points

Sep 26, 2025 11:27 AM in response to slferris

Great news … let’s hope this persists!

KWiPod

Level 2

224 points

Sep 27, 2025 2:04 AM in response to SimpleOrganised

Hi SimpleOrganised!

Thanks for this!

Has your solution continued to work since you reported it to us?

RThomas

Level 1

21 points

Oct 25, 2025 2:02 PM in response to hansdbruin

This worked for longer than clearing the metadata.

SteJav

Level 1

4 points

Nov 18, 2025 11:31 PM in response to SBML

I too experienced the same Pages problem. The issue had persisted for too long without resolution, so I reluctantly switched to MsWord. So far the problem hasn’t reappeared.

Dec 2, 2025 6:22 AM in response to KnightsWhoSay9

Edit: While in hibernation, the MacBook reinstalled the CoreSpotlight metadata folder, but this time, it seems to have stabilized at around 50MB. So, still hopeful the solution works.