Level 2

336 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

mphollis

Level 1

26 points

Posted on Jan 29, 2026 6:33 PM

I had this, in a major way. Activity Monitor showed greater that 100% CPU at ALL TIMES. My 2022 M2 became unusable, freezing, pinwheeling etc. Just like all these descriptions. I searched here and in other forums online, and I tried the many suggestions (short of reinstalling the system software). None of the resolutions fixed the issue. Eventually, I read one post that eluded to large Pages docs with many edits, especially those stored on iCloud Drive potentially contributing to the issue. I've been working on a 100+ page town report in Pages. It coincided with the worsening corespotlightd CPU issues, and it has had a truly enormous number of edits. While the doc isn't exactly huge (like 32 mb's?) the number of edits stored in it practically rival the number of atoms in the known universe.

So here's what I did: I created and saved a copy of this file, and also emailed a copy to myself out of caution. Then I moved the copy file (and it's associated files in it's folder) to my desktop, and I checked the "keep downloaded" option... I triple checked that my backup copy was current and working, and then I (terrifyingly) deleted the original file which was the result of hundreds of hours of work. I then restarted my Mac. I opened activity monitor and the issue is completely gone. corespotlightd is now using POINT one percent of my CPU.

My theory is that it was attempting to not just index the file itself, but also every single tiny edit I had done... perhaps as part of the "revert to" feature? Each nudge of a line or copy/paste of a section or tiny movement of an image... it was saving and indexing them all. When I made a copy, all that data was left behind. The new file has no undo's available. And voila, my Mac is working like it should again. What a relief!

Hope this helps somebody out there, because what a terrible experience it was for a while there.

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405 replies

PolyRod

Level 1

92 points

Dec 29, 2024 4:20 AM in response to Mitch Stone

Was trying to solve this issue and happened to notice the setting below. Help Apple Improve Search in the Spotlight options.

I don't have any recollection of letting Apple improve search! Disabled. And found spotlightcored dropped to effectively zero CPU!

No idea if this will remain the case. But seems worth a go if it is selected on your machine.

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

336 points

Dec 31, 2024 11:38 PM in response to MgS_2012

MgS_2012 wrote:

I have a follow-up call with Apple Support tomorrow morning. (I started squawking about this with them last week when the problem resurfaced after a re-install of the OS).

Correlation? It seems concerningly probable that something to do with Apple Intelligence integration is related to this issue.

A connection to AI is a reasonable conjecture, given the timing of this problem for most of us, but I have seen reports of this issue going back several years. I am also not seeing it on my MBA, which is fully updated and with the AI features enabled on it as well. I'm not surprised that an OS reinstall did not help, for reasons I've previously described. Many will be interested in a report on your call with Apple Support.

Meanwhile, another observation: the spikes in CPU usage as shown in Activity Monitor seem to be in User rather than System. This suggests creating a new user on your Mac and seeing if it inherits the problem. My theory is that it won't, because the issue is with a corrupted plist in the user directory.

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

336 points

Jan 1, 2025 9:11 AM in response to Rollwagen

It's almost certainly a user issue, as the CPU load graph shows. I'm sorry Apple put you through a reinstall. A world of hurt for no benefit. Support should know better. If you can get your problem escalated to Level II Support you can talk to someone more knowledgeable who won't take the blunderbuss approach. Ultimately this needs to be handed over to Engineering.

Rollwagen wrote:

Thanks for your posts! I have large Pages files on my M2 MB Air and Apple Intelligence turned on. Editing those docs is when I first noticed the problem that eventually led me to corespotlightd high CPU usage. I’m wondering if Writing Tools in Apple Intelligence is the culprit. I talked with Apple Support yesterday (NYE) and made it to the point in troubleshooting where we identified it as a User issue and not system wide. We progressed to a system re-install, which you already know doesn’t work. I’ll talk with Support again tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’ve turned off Apple Intelligence on my Mac to see if it will also calm down

Jan 3, 2025 9:02 AM in response to Mitch Stone

Turning off Apple Intelligence on my M2 MBA macOS 15.2 stopped corespotlightd from hogging the CPU, dropping the process from in excess of 250% of CPU to 0.0 % within 8 hours. However, when I went back into my Pages doc (currently 1.2 MB, stored on iCloud), I continued to experience the spinning rainbow wheel, although less frequently and for less time. I've also experienced hesitation in my other apps (including while typing this post!), but no spinning wheel. I've talked with a member of the Senior Support Team at Apple and have arranged for them to collect data for Engineering to evaluate. That happens this coming Tuesday (my schedule doesn't fit with theirs until then). As much as we all don't like it, it appears it's a problem we'll have to live with for a bit until Engineering can figure out what's happening

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

336 points

May 19, 2025 9:02 AM in response to KWiPod

You are the first (to my recollection) to report that any file type other than Pages triggers an out-of-control process. When I was having this problem, it persisted for 10-15 minutes after opening the Pages file, and continued for that time period whether the file remained open or not. So this may be what you are seeing. This does seem to be a recursive error. The process peaking had a "beat" to it of around five seconds.

I'm interested in the results of your experiment keeping these working files in a separate folder excluded from Spotlight indexing. You might also try making a Finder copy of a document that causes the problem and working with it. One theory is the document version history saved by Pages is a culprit. It made a difference for me, anyway.

Sorry you went through the agony of a system reinstall. I'm surprised it helped even temporarily.

KWiPod wrote:

Hi Mitch. I always assumed the issue was related to Pages. But this latest spike persisted for hours even with all apps closed and my SSD and iCloud removed from indexing. [ChatGPT suggested that a corespotlightd spike of >200% (which is happening as I type this accompanied by the SBBoD!) is likely is an indexing loop or bad database, and advised deleting the index in Terminal with sudo mdutil -E /.

Jul 5, 2025 12:50 AM in response to Mitch Stone

There seem to be some new followers of this thread.

Again, my very simple and working solution is to work on Pages document saved in non-iCloud folders (Downloads for example).

Then, when you are done, you can copy the document in Documents folder or similar.

When you have to edit, do the reverse: copy in Downloads, open that document, save, and then copy back into Documents.

Oct 16, 2025 1:45 PM in response to Mitch Stone

Dear community, Sorry 4 my English language. I had lots of problems with corespotlightd. I tried a lot of your solutions. Nothing was successful. And then I pressed the bottom at spotlight in Systeeminstellingen: "delete history" / 'Wis geschiedenis". Problem solved. All day long up to now. RSVP, Hans de Bruin.

SBML

Level 1

48 points

Nov 18, 2025 11:18 PM in response to Mitch Stone

I've been following & occasionally contributing to this thread for almost a year. I wanted to report that I have had zero spinning beachballs or corespotlightd issues since I moved all of my daily-use Pages documents out of iCloud and into Dropbox.

I'm currently running a Mini M4 pro with 64GB of RAM with Sequoia 15.7.1 and Pages 14.4. I have a side screen displaying two Console windows running 'top' commands that show the running processes (stuck ones first*), along with an Activity monitor window with the %CPU column selected. My Metadata/CoreSpotlight folder is currently 13.5GB and I haven't bothered deleting any of its contents for over six months.

My personal theory is that this issue is linked to the unlimited undos that Pages offers when images are inserted into documents, resized, text wrapped settings altered, image processed, deleted, replaced etc. I think it tries to index every change going back to the document origination. I still duplicate my daily Pages files at the start of each month in order to reduce this massive over-indexing but I'm no longer sure I need to. Why this seems to be a bigger issue when the documents are in iCloud is baffling. Not all of my theories are backed up by empirical data (in truth, hardly any are), so I'd be interested to hear if anyone else tries this and gets a positive result. I think it took a couple of days to calm down after I'd moved everything, but I'm very glad I did because this issue was driving me crazy(er). I've been an Apple fan for thirty years (Ok, the Power Mac 7100 was a nightmare) but I can't understand why this issue hasn't been sorted yet.

I occasionally see a stuck searchpartyd process, but it doesn't seem to create any problems and it unsticks quickly

malhal

Level 1

76 points

Nov 30, 2025 9:16 AM in response to Mitch Stone

Same problem here.

Pages file on in iCloud Drive/Documents. Pages file is open. CoreSpotlight folder has grown to 60GB. Mac hangs every 10 seconds, pausing the mouse pointer and audio glitches. In Activity Monitor, Pages and corespotlightd both unusually high CPU usage, over 50%.

Quit Pages, move file to local disk. Open document. Issue doesn't happen.

macOS 26.1 (25B78)

Pages version 14.4 (7043.0.93)

Dec 2, 2025 2:31 AM in response to Mitch Stone

Hi all,

Just recently converted from Windows and also had this issue, which is obviously unacceptable.

Working on an Air M4, sequoia 15.7, mostly with web browsers and pages.

It seems as the issue arises when Pages documents are stored in iCloud.

Tried to block spotlight entirely by a terminal command found in a forum, but that didn't do the trick.

Tried to uncheck Pages from syncing to iCloud, but didn't do the trick.

Then:

Tried to store all documents locally (in Library folder, not User folder as I suspect it to route back into iCloud(?)) - and it seems to do the trick.

Deleted the metadata folder, which before instantly reoccurred and started to grow, and now it hasn't reoccurred for a few hours, at least. And no corespotlightd process running.

Having several Pages docs open, problem seems to be solved for the moment, but will update if it doesn't last.

Just have to remember to backup my files "manually".

JNoel54

Level 2

215 points

Dec 6, 2025 4:08 AM in response to Mitch Stone

New information about Spotlight slowing down and glitching your computer. I don't recommend it for anyone who regularly uses Spotlight Search but I don't - and am giving it a try to solve an ongoing issue for me and a lot of other folks.

I read a piece by Michael Simon in MacWorld that addressed the problem many of us have been having with glitches caused by Spotlight. He claimed that he solved his same problems by toggling off items under System Settings/Spotlight. He disabled 'Show related content' and 'Help Apple improve search'.

I have been regularly deleting large folders in ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and this insight from Michael Simon seems to follow that same reasoning. Again, if you regularly use Spotlight Search, you obviously want to leave at least the first item enabled.

Simon also suggested disabling System Settings/ Spotlight /results from apps for Pages.

After making these changes, my problems stopped. I am no longer regularly deleting huge folders in ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ .

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

336 points

Jan 3, 2025 9:31 AM in response to Rollwagen

I've found a couple of ways to reduce the process load, but it's always temporary. Deleting the plist as I first suggested does it for me, but perhaps because this plist is modified by the OS every night, the issue comes back the next day. Possibly any large processor demand is the trigger. For me, the process always falls back into a tolerable range 10-15 minutes after closing the triggering Pages document. Thanks for being our emissary to Apple Support. I know how time consuming this can be. Looking forward to your report!

Rollwagen wrote:

Turning off Apple Intelligence on my M2 MBA macOS 15.2 stopped corespotlightd from hogging the CPU, dropping the process from in excess of 250% of CPU to 0.0 % within 8 hours. However, when I went back into my Pages doc (currently 1.2 MB, stored on iCloud), I continued to experience the spinning rainbow wheel, although less frequently and for less time. I've also experienced hesitation in my other apps (including while typing this post!), but no spinning wheel. I've talked with a member of the Senior Support Team at Apple and have arranged for them to collect data for Engineering to evaluate. That happens this coming Tuesday (my schedule doesn't fit with theirs until then). As much as we all don't like it, it appears it's a problem we'll have to live with for a bit until Engineering can figure out what's happening

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

336 points

Jan 6, 2025 11:36 PM in response to ericmurphysf

I don't believe this issue is exclusive to Pages, as I have seen it elsewhere, but it seems to be triggered most reliably by opening large documents in this app. Close the document and the process falls back to a normal range in a few minutes, usually. Time Machine is working properly for me, though it could still be implicated in the way you suggest.

Maybe off-topic, but perhaps helpful for your Time Machine issue: TM maintains a library of backup images on the backed up volume, so it might not address an issue with a corrupted TM backup by starting with a new backup drive. You might try forcing TM to verify the existing backup. Control-click on the backup drive in System Settings/General/Time Machine and select "verify" from the popup menu. If it can't be verified you will have the option to delete and backup from scratch. Worth a try.

ericmurphysf wrote:

I've had similar problems with all four of my Macs (a Mac Studio with an M1 Ultra, a MacBook Pro with an M2 Max, an iMac Pro, and a 17-inch 2020 iMac with an 8-core Core i7). On all four systems, I noted sometime around when 15.1.1 came out that corespotlightd would frequently top the list of processes, using anything from 100% CPU all the way to 750%(!) of CPU (on the iMac), causing the fans to spin up on the Intel systems to annoying levels. Updating to 15.2 did not resolve the issue for me, and in fact may have worsened it.

I did notice that corespotlightd calmed down quite a bit simply by closing a large Pages doc (200+ MB), and even more reliably by simply closing Pages on systems where I wasn't actively editing documents (at least, documents that are synced to iCloud). Corespotlightd will still occasionally ramp up to 100+% of CPU, but it won't stay there indefinitely, and most of the time it will be under 50%.

But another more serious issue: I found that after I installed 15.1.1, I could no longer back up the Intel systems via Time Machine. If I tried, one or both situations would arise: (i) a Time Machine backup would be "preparing" for hours or even days; and (ii) attempting such backups would frequently lead to repeated kernel-panics. The only resolution for this latter issue I have found is to disable Time Machine backups entirely. Even starting a backup on a freshly-erased backup drive with no existing Time Machine backups would still lead to the same behavior vis à vis interminable "preparation" of backups and repeated kernel panics.

One thing occurred to me during all of this trouble-shooting: I believe that Time Machine relies on Spotlight to identify files which have been modified since the last backup. I think it may be there is some bug in corespotlightd that aside from consuming vast system resources, also leads to complete (albeit short-lived) system freezes where they don't cause a kernel panic, and also interferes with the proper operation of Time Machine.

Feb 9, 2025 2:03 PM in response to Mitch Stone

Mitch Stone wrote:

Earlier in this discussion it was established that iCloud is not the culprit. Files that will trigger the problem will do so whether they are stored locally or in iCloud. I meant corespotlightd because this the process I see as being hyperactive when the CPU is overloaded. Either way I have had this large Pages file open for over an hour now and the file has not grown at all. Unfortunately all of the theories we've come up with so far are incomplete or flawed. They only seem to work for some users some of the time.

I realize iCloud is not the cause per se (because the problem has been reproduced with Pages files that are not on iCloud Drive). I'm curious about exploring the possibility that the problem is worse without the optimize function on. It seems to me that with my two machines, there's just much slower growth of the folder on the machine with optimize on.

I'll also add: I'm not sure your case completely disproves the general thesis. 60Gb is a really large metadata file. It's already at the point that corespotlightd is taking over the CPU. So by this point it doesn't really matter that the folder has stopped (or significantly) slowed its growth; it's already a problem. And I guess I have to assume that the folder got that big for the same reasons as everyone else. If you could delete your folder, and then open a pages file and have the folder not grow – that would be a totally different data point.

Now that I've been deleting my metadata folder (as an experiment) I have absolutely zero issues with corespotlightd. If the corespotlight folder is smaller than 10Gb I find I never have any slowdowns at all.

Feb 10, 2025 1:04 PM in response to PolyRod

PolyRod wrote:

And that just might correspond to my Pages issues. The documents which have always seemed to be the most sensitive to issues have significant and dense Tables of Contents.

Interesting about the Table of Contents in Pages files. I keep a daily journal which by the end of the year can run to well over a thousand pages (I'm long-winded to put it mildly). These journals have 13 ToCs: the main one with entries for each month, and then each month has a section ToC entry for each day in the month.

This issue became particularly severe towards the middle of December of last year when my Pages journal file was over a thousand pages long and had something like 350 ToC entries. The problem persisted even after I stopped editing, or even opening, this journal file and started a new one for the new year. But I think what happens is once the metadata gets to a certain size (maybe 100 GB or more), the problem starts to snowball, with increasingly large amounts of metadata being saved and corespotlightd spiking as it tries to trudge through hundreds of gigabytes of metadata.

I've had very good luck with just deleting all this metadata and letting Spotlight rebuild it. It doesn't cure the problem permanently, but so long as I don't let these folders get too large, my systems are gratifyingly free of the stalls, system crashes, and even Time Machine issues I'd been having previously.

Continued corespotlightd process CPU overload issues