Is it possible to change a task's priority. My machine is very slow and according to Activity monitor. The task "Photos Agent" is taking of 90% of the CPU. While I like my pictures synced to the icloud. I don't need this task to take over my machine while I am trying to do my work!!!!
It would be nice to lower a task's priority so that we can continue to do work.
Any suggestions ?
MacBook Air, macOS High Sierra (10.13.1), MBAir 13, MBA, iPad Pro, iPhone X
There are command-line utilities renice and nice that can be used to accomplish this, although it's difficult to say what effect it will have overall.
renice allows changing priority of the running process, while nice allows starting a new process with the given priority.
Assuming your process is already running, you want renice. Find out the process' ID (or PID). You can see it in the PID column in activity monitor, or when inspecting the process.
Suppose PID is 98765.
In Terminal, run sudo renice # -p 98765, where # is the priority (value from -20 for most favorable, and 20 for the lowest priority). 0 is base scheduling priority. -20 is the top priority, and 20 is lowest. So, you'll want a positive value to lower in your case.
Vasiliy
There are command-line utilities renice and nice that can be used to accomplish this, although it's difficult to say what effect it will have overall.
renice allows changing priority of the running process, while nice allows starting a new process with the given priority.
Assuming your process is already running, you want renice. Find out the process' ID (or PID). You can see it in the PID column in activity monitor, or when inspecting the process.
Suppose PID is 98765.
In Terminal, run sudo renice # -p 98765, where # is the priority (value from -20 for most favorable, and 20 for the lowest priority). 0 is base scheduling priority. -20 is the top priority, and 20 is lowest. So, you'll want a positive value to lower in your case.
Vasiliy
If you really want to look into this the read up on CPUthrottle (I use Mavericks so I don't know its system requirements). If it is something taking a minute to process then I'd just be patient. If it is taking hours (like video) and is trying to use all your CPU then it may be worth the hassle of learning how to use CPU throttle.
Is it possible to change a task's priority.
Not that one, no.
Let it finish.
change task's priority
