These are created every two hours on my NEW mac with NO images in photos!! I undertand they index photos for animals, people, etc, but none to index and I have that setting turned off. How can I stop these?
hd/users/me/library/containers/com.apple.photoanalysisd/data/tmp
Thanks.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.1
I could find no documentation on the specific "Alchemistgenerationtask" folders, but can offer a bit background information on the process photosanalysd and the "Containers" folder.
The folder hd/users/me/library/containers is containing caches that are used as a sandbox for the safe communication between apps and processes. This way a process can only access app data that the app allows the other app or process to access. In your case you are looking at the sandbox used by Photosanalysisd, a process that is analyzing all photos and videos in your Photos library, trying to recognize what the items are showing. Many tasks in Photos are depending on the results of photosanalysisd, so you should not try to interfere with this process. It will continually run in the background, whenever you import new photos.
I I have no idea what the fancy name for the folders is referring to, I have first seen these folders on macOS Sequoia. Perhaps the name has been inspired by the ambitious transmutation projects of the alchemists.
Previously I have only seen the name Alchemy in the frameworks used by the Music apps (GarageBand, MainStage, Logic Pro) for the synthesis of sounds.
The oldest AlchemisGenerationTask folder on my Mac is from June 2024. all older alchemy is related to music and sound synthesis.
I am also getting new folders every two hours.
For example: My screenshot is in German, but you can see the column with the creation date:
The folders are all empty, but photoanalysisd is reading and a writing a lot of data to the internal drive.
My Photos Library has currently a size of 400GB.
I am not worried about the cached folders. It is to be expected that the Photos Library needs scanning again after a system upgrade that has changed the algorithm for the image analysis. Apple is adding more artificial intelligence to the image analysis.
BobUlius wrote: …How can I stop these?
Like many Library folders and files, these seem to be created automatically for the Mac's internal use. "Like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." Just look away…
Thanks. That's very helpful.
Do you get a new AlchemistGenerationTask folder every two hours or so? If not, I wonder why I do. If so, seems not to be only me at least.
And I have NO images in Photos at all. None. So suprised it keeps looking.
Hah! I learned early on not to pick at scabs. But never to avoid trying to understand what my computer does in the background and why :)
Unwanted Alchemistgenerationtask Folders in Photos on New Mac
