Q: Safari Web Content high CPU usage

FWIW, after reading through some of this thread, I moved the three items below from the Safari folder that is in the user account's Library folder to the desktop (after quitting Safari), then cold booted, then launched Safari.

Safari Web Content process and the fans on my 2012 MBPr have been stable whereas they previously had been excessively high.

LocalStorage (folder)

WebpageIcons.db

HistoryIndex.sk

JohnMM, you said you have an option in the Bookmark menu is to save all open tabs to a folder, but I don't seem to have that. I'm using Snow Leopard, so maybe it's a later development (to help deal with all this stuff). If I could do that, it would make life much easier.... The only way I can do that now, without having to manually go window to window, bookmarking every tab, would be to close, then open, hit reopen all windows, then copy & paste all the bookmarks from the history, as they'll all be lined up at the start. However, that won't add any new ones I open... but it would help.  I sure hope some of this is better dealt with in the new OS....

I have Safari 6.0.5 and the Bookmarks menu, 3rd item from the top, has "Add bookmarks for these "x" tabs". Snow Leopard is not supported for the current version of Safari.

One of my other strategies to reduce open tabs is to send pages to Pocket or Instapaper. This works best for text-intensive pages, but can be used in a pinch. It's not particularly hard to save articles to either service, one-by-one, or to create bookmarks, one-by-one, especially if it's part of your routine. Using Reader (not reading list) in Safari, or using one of these services, makes online reading much more efficient.

I have Safari 5.1.7

In safari when I highlight a piece of text, scrolling becomes erratic and the Safari Web Content runs up the cpu to 100%.   This only seems to happen on a webpage that is sourced by google web toolkit (GWT). This does not happen with firefox, chrome, IE.

There was a similar statement made by

GodwinCanuck

Re: Safari Web Content high CPU usage

13-Jul-2012 02:27 (in response to The-Bard)

where folks were saying google docs or the like (backed by GWT perhaps) were impacting cpu.

But no other information provided.

Does anyone know the relationship to GWT, or could provide steps to troubleshoot. I've been playing with developer and debug options in safari but nothing stands out as of yet.

Safari CPU usage 100% plus. Spent 2 or 3 hours trying the many suggestions kindly posted on the web. Failed in all cases. Downloaded Chrome, imported all Safari Bookmarks. Chrome CPU usage 14%! Works like a charm. Took me 5 minutes.

Patrick is right about Chrome, but it only took me 3 minutes

Same story for me - Safari 6.05. Tried to deactivate add ons, but still after some time - CPU usage rockets above 100% and stays there. MacBookAir Mid2011 running 10.8.5.

Changed to Firefox and there is no such problem -even with adblocker activated. The only problem is that I like Safari UI better than all the others, so I would like Apple to fix this rather than making us drop Safari. Are they not replying to cases like this at all?

Hi Hanshefu,

Apple employees rarely if ever participate in these forums which instead are for end users.

To submit an enhancement request,

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

I think (but could be mistaken) that a workaround is to install more RAM (for Macs that have user-upgradable RAM; your MBA probably is not user-upgradeable).

Another possibility is that Mavericks might address this scenario with its RAM compression feature.

Thanks for your reply, BFH !

You are correct - there is no possible RAM-upgrade for my MBA. 4 is max.

I haven't seen that Maverick-feature, but I must admit I'm a bit sceptic when it comes to installing newer OS and expecting any kind of reduction in HW-usage. Usually the OS-upgrades have proven to eat more RAM, disc and CPU. If Maverick really helps on the RAM-usage, it could also be good for my old iMac at home, even though a SSD-upgrade possibly would be the best thing for it.

OK - until Maverick then - I stay with The (Fire) Fox :-)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE

http://www.apple.com/osx/preview/advanced-technologies.html

Still a bit sceptic to the effect, but must admit that I just upgraded my iPhone5 to the new iOS7 and this definately was positive performance-wise  :-)

This is just great: I just noticed that switching from the ethernet to the WiFi is the reason for the high Web Content CPU usage. The problem is that switching back to ethernet doesn't stop it.

Safari 6.0.5

OS X Lion 10.7.5

Ah - that actually sounds reasonable and explains why I don't experience this on my MBAir at work when I'm on the ethernet, but it starts when I get home connected only to Wifi. This also explains why my ethernet connected iMac doesen't show any of the same issues ...

Yeah. I knew the WiFi wasn't good in Lion, but this is really junk. It is only the WiFi, what can get wrong with it?

Even more interesting! It can be the Bluetooth. At least it was in Snow Leopard:

http://blog.afandian.com/2012/03/crazy-high-cpu-usage-on-snow-leopard-and-a-surp rising-culprit/

Not sure if the BT and WiFi share the same chip, but people without BT devices may want to try disabling it.

PS: sorry for the double post. I just wanted to give it the relevance