Pages high CPU and heating on Mac Air M4 - Solution

PAGES heating up - excessive CPU use. How to solve it

2 weeks on a new Mac Air M4. So, as soon as I started to use PAGES for the first time, I started to feel a horrible heat I had never felt before. My instinct took me to check the Activity Monitor and Pages was using around 45% of my CPU!!!

I was also using 4 simultaneous tabs of Safari but it was cool until I opened Pages. I asked Gemini and it gave me the solution that worked right away.

:)

Since I did not see any answer here in the discussions forum, I am happy to share it with you. (Only steps 1 and 2 to have Pages go from 45% to 0.4% CPU usage) :

"It's frustrating when a simple word processor starts acting like you're rendering a 3D movie. In the 2026 versions of macOS and Pages, this is a known issue often tied to a specific "loop" between Apple's AI features and iCloud.

Here is how to cool your Mac down:

1. The "Apple Intelligence" Fix (Most Likely)

There is a known bug where "Apple Intelligence" tries to constantly learn from your Pages documents, causing massive CPU spikes (often seen as corespotlightd in Activity Monitor).

• Go to System Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri.
• Click About Siri, Dictation & Privacy (or a similar "App" settings button).
• Find Pages in the list.
• Turn OFF the "Learn from this application" toggle.

2. The "Desktop Sync" Trap

If your document is saved on your Desktop or in Documents and you have iCloud Sync turned on for those folders, Pages triggers a re-index every few seconds because of its aggressive autosave.

• The Fix: Move the file you are working on into the dedicated iCloud Drive > Pages folder.
• 
  
• Why? Apple uses a more efficient "delta sync" for files inside the official Pages folder, which prevents Spotlight from re-indexing the entire file every time you type a sentence.

3. Clear the Spotlight Index

If the CPU usage is still high, your Spotlight database might be corrupted from all those save loops.

• Open Terminal (Cmd + Space, type "Terminal").
• Paste this command and hit Enter: sudo mdutil -E /
• (It will ask for your Mac password—type it in, though you won't see characters appear, and hit Enter).
• This forces macOS to delete and rebuild the search index. It’ll be a bit busy for 15 minutes, but it usually clears the "stuck" process.

4. Check for "Threaded" Text Boxes

If you are using a Page Layout document (rather than a standard word processing one), check if you have linked text boxes where text flows from one to another. There’s a long-standing glitch where selecting a text box in a "thread" causes the CPU to peg at 100%. Deselecting the box or clicking out of it usually drops the usage instantly.

Quick Check: If you open Activity Monitor, do you see corespotlightd or tccd near the top of the list along with Pages? Knowing which one is "red-lining" can help narrow it down further."