photoanalysisd taking large amounts of cpu

I had the same problem with my WIN crap. They (NOT ME!) decide what to do with my computer, like a reboot while I'm working or upload processes. Worst of all was SONY on WIN crap. You canna stop anything or purge the poor system from SONY.

Here, there WAS a law for standard technology called DIN and all our german cars had breaks and you could leave the car when ever you wanted ... I miss the old time 😉

I have tried everything suggested, I have Sierra 10.12.5 and guess what photoanalysisd keeps coming back even when I DO NOT have photos running anywhere on my iMAC. So it really is a bad penny that keeps coming back. I have even unloaded it via launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.photoanalysisd.plist not sure if this will work, just tried, it; however, if you do start photos after doing this command after disabling csrutil, it does relaunch, UGH. Wish apple would give us a REAL way to UNINSTALL it, don't need it, don't want it.

Same problem, but found a solution. Disable system protection, restart in single user mode (or login as root) and remove the com.apple.photoanalysisd.plist file. Reboot and it would be fine. Don't forget to enable system protection.

You can also set the file apart, so if you want to enable it just put it back.

I didn't see this happen. This customer is using a Foto's library residing on a Macmini server with 3 Mac's. When the first iMac opened the library (after being upgraded to Sierra) it starts to convert the library (Sierra is using Foto's v2.0, El Capitan is using v1.5 so all the mac's should be upgraded to Sierra to use it). After iMac1 had converted the library the problem appeared that when closing Foto's (only one Mac at a time can access it) the other Macs can't open it (message that the library was in use). I've discovered the photo analysis proces to be the cause on imac1, so I did the above to solve this. The proces didn't start anymore so I think it's save to say that the file won't be generated again. To my knowledge: if you remove a plist file from agents it's disabled completely (or some sort of protection has to prevent this, then it's another story...

Apple should give you the possibility to choose not to examine your Photo's for recognition of faces (that's what this process does to my knowledge) when opening or configuration Photo's for the first time.

Don't think it's intended to make you buy a new Mac (newer ones have the same problem) but I don't think Apple would mind if you do so 🙂

Apple should give you the possibility to choose not to examine your Photo's for recognition of faces (that's what this process does to my knowledge)

It does much, much more than that. Face recognition is a practically insignificant feature any more. iPhoto incorporated it years ago.

This issue is not whether or not Face Recognition is an insignificant feature of Photo or not nor is it whether Face Recognition was incorporated in iPhoto years ago. My recollection is that in iPhoto you could choose to have Face Recognition run or not; however, in Photo you don’t have that choice and it does hog a lot of CPU when it runs. Also, I don’t care to use that feature at all, I ONLY use photo to sync my photos to my iPhones and iPADs.

When I am processing my photos my iMAC gets very sluggish and I have to go to terminal mode to disable photoanalysisd each time and it DOES restart itself even if I do not launch Photo.

So, in my humble opinion, Apple should give us an option to turn off photoanalysisd if we don’t want it running or don’t want to use Face Recognition.

John, I agree iPhoto did automatically start to scan for faces; however, I was able to stop the process and it DID NOT start again until I restarted iPhoto. I AM NOT using photo for “photo-organizing”, I use other apps for that, I DO however use it to sync my photos because in the latest iterations of iTunes, iOS I can not sync from my external HD where all my photos are located, the sync process does not work like it use to and I have not changed anything about where I keep my photos or how I organize them. The issue, as others have reported, started with the latest round of iTunes and iOS, etc.

The only way I have to sync my photos to my iDevices is through photo and iTunes, I am a photographer by trade and I need my photos updated and current and in the organization style I have been using for years. The only way I found was to use Photo, which until now, I have never used, it is not a very robust photo organizer or editor.

One more notch in the Apple not caring about pro users anymore. Make everything "simple" and force us to update hardware because of excessive use of system resources.
Glad I'm still on Yosemite at home.....

Well, it doesn’t happen on my version of Photos v2.0, all I see are the faces/people i have names and a “+” sign to see all the 1000+ faces/People I have not identified. So I have no Idea how far along photoanalysisd is in the process.

Exactly.

Furthermore, even if we could tell it's progress, we should be able to disable it. It's nonsense, and it's a crappy user experience if you don't actually need it.

The fact that they didn't even think to throttle the process, shows how far Apple has fallen in the UX game.

Yes, I have let photoanalysisd run, I have not gone into terminal to stop the process ( really doesn’t make any difference, it restarts itself even when photos is not running or started), I currently have 1076 faces that have not been identified and it is growing, it was 950 two days ago, so seeing faces doesn’t mean photoanalysisd is done....

launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.photoanalysisd.plist

The new system protection will not allow that command to work. Here is what I did to kill that CPU hog.

1. Run from another system disk

2. Find /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.photoanalysisd.plist on the system disk with the problem

3. Drag that file to another folder, such as the desktop

4. Restart from normal system disk

5. To restore, reverse the procedure by putting file back where it was

"If you click on "people" in the left hand sidebar of the Photos app, it tells you how many photos it has processed, and how many are remaining."

No, it does not. All it shows are a few faces. No stats about how many are remaining to be processed.

My iMac is constant burning hot because of this process, is Apple trying to kill my hardware so I would need to buy new ones? Have you looked at the prices on the new Mac, need to take out a new mortgage to get one with decent performance.