photoanalysisd taking large amounts of cpu

It has thankfully stopped its latest cycle. It runs for hours, and then a few days later, it runs again, apparently for the same length of time. It seems to run every few days for hours even though I don't think my photo library has changed in that time. It is not just some process which has no effect. It uses so much CPU on my old MBP (along with some calendar daemon which also uses masses of CPU) that when I want to do something like stream a video, the CPU fan comes on so high it really interferes with the experience.

It is not true that running the photos app stops the daemon running. Just ran the photos app after a peaceful period, and now I have two processes taking more than 100% CPU - photoanalysisd and calendaragent. Are these two related? Seems they both restarted when I started photos app. I have 4,100 photos and I'm on MacOS 10.12.3.

This command use to work for me to disable the indexing -

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

However this stopped working when I upgraded to Sierra 10.12.4 with the error

"Operation not permitted while System Integrity Protection is engaged"

I receive this error with and without sudo

I then found this and it works for 10.12.4

If you want to disable it entirely, the first command stops it from respawning, and the second kills the one that is currently running:

launchctl disable gui/$UID/com.apple.photoanalysisd

launchctl kill -TERM gui/$UID/com.apple.photoanalysisd

found this solution here

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/5887s9/photoanalysisd_macos_sierras_most _contentious_new/

I hope this help someone else

al

P.S. to Appe ... give us a way to disable this in the settings of Photos!

Just never ends with Apple does it? Constantly doing what THEY think is right... great looking thinner but less useful laptops which have less power and less ports... great looking desktops that look like bins... now apps that take over the less powerful less useful laptops and desktops. But its OK because they've got a great looking HQ. I've used Apple products for 30 years plus, because they produced products that got more useful, not less.😟

Really makes me wonder about the intelligence of the developers and decision makers at apple. The feature is fine if you have 1000 photos. But if you have 70,000 it's quite a bit different. Close the photos app and the indexer runs, open the photos app and that consumes a ton of CPU. I've never heard a hard drive grind so much in any PC since maybe the Windows XP days. Sierra so far has been pretty disappointing on older systems. I don't own a Mac but I work on them quite a bit and it's pretty bad.

What's worse a virus that takes over your CPU or OSX taking over your cpu with some unstoppable process? At least you can kill the virus. As a very long time OSX user all I can say is *** apple some people like to use their CPU for things beside indexing photos. Why can't you stop this process? This is total BS from a user perspective absolutely no control of your system.

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.....