Photoanalysisd process overheats my Mac on macOS Sierra

I am experiencing the same. My Mac Mini has been running hot due to this and has been doing it for 2 weeks now - yes, 14 days. I have been told that this is peculiar to Sierra and although reported a long time ago, it hasn't been fixed. I have been told that Apple engineers are "hoping to provide a fix in the next update". But then, they've been saying this for months. FWIW, my Photos Library contains 70K plus photos, so it's no wonder it's keeping the machine busy, but to occupy CPU to over 130% is crazy.

For everyone experiencing this issue, here are a couple of things to keep in mind and some possible ways to shorten the time of the processing.

This is unique so far to Sierra. Under Sierra it will happen on every Apple device you own and upgrade to current OSs. In High Sierra, it need only happen on 1 device and the meta data will be shared with your other devices. I suggest you have your fastest device to analyze your photos.

Photos is attempting to do many different things like categorizing objects and facial recognition. This is very processor intensive and in order to group things and to create all the meta-data, Photos goes through your library multiple times. The larger your library, the more times it will repeat the process. As it finds new faces, it has to analyze and compare to other faces for possible matches. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat… Photos doesn't just go through all your Photos just once!

One way to cut down the time it takes, is to split your library. You should do this before installing Sierra. You can move your Photos library to an external drive, split into 2 or more libraries and only have Photos analyze 1 library. How many of us have 10 year old photos that don't need to be in current library. You can move this to an external drive and not have them indexed by Photos. You can start a new internal library and the time it takes to analyze photos as you take them is very short. You can export photos and keep copies on external drives or on a cloud server like Dropbox or Amazon, etc…

A strong, very strong warning for all users of iCloud Photo Library. If you simply delete photos in your iCloud Photo Library, all copies of your photos will be deleted. (They are temporarily held in a "Recently Deleted" folder for 30 days but then are permantely deleted) This means if you are running out of room on your iPhone and delete photos it will eventually delete them from your iCloud library, your computer and everything else tied to your iCloud Photos Library.

OK I have done my best to warn you!

As to the precent of CPU used, how can it be 150-700%?? Macs with Intel processors are capable of using multiple cores and each core is capable of running 2 threads each. If you have a 2 core Mac Mini, it has a maximum of 400% CPU usage. If you have a computer with 4 cores, the maximum is 800%.

The Giga Hertz (GHz) plays a role here as well.The higher the GHz the faster the processor. However, as the computer reaches a certain temperature, it will self throttle (slow down) to limit the heat inside, therefore, making sure to apply some external cooling will help speed up intensive processes. You can see this in Activity Monitor located in your Utilities Folder.

Best I can say is split your library, or just wait and leave your computer plugged in and on, no sleep at night.

Having said all this, is it possible that your computer will get hung up? Unfortunately, yes, but it is very difficult to tell when it happens. You may have corrupted files that trips up the Mac. About the only way I know of figuring out if your Mac is hung is to go into Activity Monitor, select the process and take multiple samples to see if it is just looping on a file.

Hope this helps, Greg

This is honest opinion and usefull information.

I second the wish for a "slow analysis" option, so this process doesn't reduce the joy of being a Mac user.

Secondly, I would warn against "splitting libraries" as moving photos from one library to another is a complicated task, you risk losing your edits, or the ability to undo them. For users who have aquired tens of thousands of photos, it's simply not an option to fiddle around with their storage location.

Problem also exists in High Sierra, and no, letting it run for several days does not solve the problem. See also: mediaanalysisd burning up CPU - High Sierra

Hi Ariel

This is Photos indexing and analyzing all your photos. This is indeed processor intensive and depending on how large your Photos library is, could take a very long time. Up to 2 days in extreme cases.

If your computer is very hot, make sure you provide air circulation all around the case. Try elevating on a wire rack like like you might have in your kitchen for cooling cookies or use a oven rack.

If it still displays signs of overheating, you can place a fan to blow air on it, or even place an icy cold pack or something cold under the computer.

Hope this helps, Greg

You are welcome🙂

Same problem here and CPU running at 130% I did not know that was even possible...

I found that "photoanalysisd" pauses itself if you have Photos.app (with the Faces tab) open or if you don't have power connected.

Same problem here with my late 2013 model iMac.

"photoanalysisd" is consuming >100% CPU (how is that possible?) and my iMac is running hot. Any way to disable this feature?

Thanks, Arielsam!

It took a couple of hours, but finally completed and now everything appears to be back to normal.

William

I've been searching far and wide for anyone who knows how to troubleshoot photoanalysisd - I have read that it takes time but mine clearly has a malfunction. It's been running for days and has still only completed 83 of my 12k photos. At this point its been nearly two weeks since I did the Sierra install and photoanalysisd is still running and using in excess of 100% of my CPU.

I can't seem to find any advice on this issue anywhere.

If you have Little Snitch, you can block it permanently. I don't want the cloud, like my photos and music to stay on my mac, no Iphone or watch to synch.

I'm having the same "leaf blower" cooling fan noise & overheating problem on my Early 2011 17" MacBook Pro 2.2Ghz Core i7 with 16GB RAM and 500GB Samsung EVO Pro SSD. Overheating immediately following upgrade to Sierra from Yosemite: photoanalysisd taking 150% to 250% . Yes 250% !!!

Fortunately I have my MacBook Pro sitting on a Zalman Cool Innovations laptop stand with a HUGE 200mm cooling fan PLUS a 110mm ThermalTake USB powered external fan running at full speed blowing air across the aluminum strip between the top of the keyboard and the 17" display. This prevents my MacBook Pro from overheating (monitored by TG Pro).

Apple REALLY should enhance their photoanalysisd code to scale back its searching / indexing when:

1. CPUs / GPU overheat
2. % CPU > 50%
3. laptops are on battery
4. other user processes require photoanalysisd to "pause"

C'mon Apple, Steve Jobs would NEVER let this remain this way!

exactly...we're now practically alpha testing OSX. I made the mistake of maxing out a current 13" AIR in hardware and i can barely use it without it overheating every half our or so and THATS with iStat fan control running the fan at 6500rpm in an air conditioned room no less.

Crazy stuff Apple Dev teams. Sad days indeed.