Mac Studio M1 QuickLook and Finder freezing with high mediaanalysis CPU usage

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Mac Studio M1 QuickLook and Finder freezing with high mediaanalysis CPU usage

I have noticed the quicklook freezing, and the finder getting frozen. Activity Monitor shows that mediaanalysis cpu usage is running high. Initially I thought it was Brave, as it seemed to be related to an install of this browser. I uninstalled it, and things seemed ok, but the finder locked again. Checking activity shows that sometimes usage spikes above 100%

I am on a Mac Studio M1 running Tahoe. 32 megs of memory and 2 t of hard drive space.

Mac Studio, macOS 26.6

Posted on Sep 16, 2026 7:08 PM

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Answer 1

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WheelieNick

Level 9

65,764 points

Sep 17, 2026 3:29 AM in response to Roninmaru

The mediaanalysisd background process is an AI-driven service responsible for scanning local photos and videos. It extracts Live Text, handles face/object recognition, and updates Quick Look previews.

Try this

Open Finder, press Command + Shift + G to open the "Go to Folder" window.

Paste the following path and press Enter:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mediaanalysisd/Data/Library/Caches

Locate the folder named com.apple.mediaanalysisd.

Drag it to the Trash and empty it. (Don’t worry, macOS will rebuild a fresh, clean copy automatically).

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