corespotlightd is causing High CPU Use

You might take a look at another Community thread on the subject.

This issue has bedeviled some users for over a year and a half.

Continued corespotlightd process CPU over… - Apple Community

That thread has lead many to the conclusion that the problem is related to Pages and iCloud syncing.

I've experienced a similar issue and the fix for me has come down to several steps I have taken:

• Deleting the /Users/myusername/Library/Metadata/Corespotlight folder. It grows overlarge (90 GB) in time.

• Duplicating old, often edited Pages files on iCloud Drive and deleting the originals.

I cannot pinpoint which of these has the greatest impact as I've done them both at each incident.

Initially this calmed the corespotlightd process for six months or so until the problem eventually returned. But having done it a second time it's pretty painless so I may look at it as routine maintenance until Apple can provide a proper fix, whatever that may be.

It was installed just Yesterday 2026-06-04 macOS 26.5.1 (26.5.1) - Software update

corespotlightd is the daemon responsible for Spotlight indexing and search metadata. Anything that causes Spotlight to constantly re-index, process large metadata sets, or get stuck in indexing loops can negatively impact it

Common causes include>>

1 - Copying or moving large numbers of files.

2 - Restoring from backups.

3 - Syncing large cloud-storage libraries.

4 - Downloading large photo or video collections.

These trigger extensive reindexing.

After the installation of Tahoe 26.5.1, Spotlight often rebuilds indexes. High CPU usage from corespotlightd for hours—or even a day or two on large SSDs, Is not unusual

Below, would seem to confirm the above assertion

1 - Runaway user process - A user process is using a large percentage of your CPU.

2 - Low performance - EtreCheck report took an unusually long time to run.

3 - Heavy I/O usage - Your system is under heavy I/O use. This will reduce your performance.

Press ⌘ Command + Space to open Spotlight.

If indexing is underway, Spotlight may display "Indexing…" or a progress indicator near the top of the search window. 

Or, Open Terminal and run mdutil -s /

ie % mdutil -s /

/:

Indexing enabled.

If Spotlight is actively rebuilding, you will typically see output indicating indexing is in progress. If indexing is finished, you'll generally just see that indexing is enabled

The elimination of 200 GB from /myusername/Library/Metadata/Corespotlight, ?

That would help for the condition I overlooked earlier

Sorry about that oversight

From the etrecheck report

The importance being, the difference between Free and Available

Size: 994.66 GB

      Free: 164.60 GB

      Available: 751.73 GB

From another contributor @etresoft regarding Free Space versus Available Space 

Free vs available disk space huge differe… - Apple Community

Quote >>  “ The "available" storage is the amount of used storage that the operating system could automatically delete if it felt that it was really necessary. The "free" storage is the amount that you can actually use for something.

There are system processes that run in the background and automatically delete some of the "available" storage and convert it to "free". If you completely run out of storage, then those system processes will try a little harder. When you "delete" files you are just hinting to the operating system that you don't need those files anymore. The operating system will eventually remove them, but on its own schedule.

"  << End Quote 

Purgeable Space is controlled by the Operating System and not the user 

Get detailed information about a disk in Disk Utility on Mac

By the way, both of those 2 third party applications you have mentioned are very often used, including by myself

You are welcome

My wife once worked for ICI

She has recounted the punch card experiences she had

Gosh , how far we have come

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We appreciate your trust and participation.

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