Level 2

306 points

Continued corespotlightd process CPU overload issues

I am wondering if anyone has discovered any new ideas for stopping the corespotlightd process from hogging the CPU. According to Activity Monitor, the corespotlightd process often occupies more than 100% of the CPU load, sometimes spiking as high as 400% on my M2 Ultra Mac Studio. This problem has become so severe that it often pinwheels under normally non-intensive tasks. It can cause the video to flicker on my Studio Display. In one case it caused my Mac to kernel panic (crash).

I encountered this bug only after installing Sequoia 15.2, but having researched this issue extensively, I find that Mac users have identified it since at least macOS Ventura. So here are some solutions we don't need to hear again:

Reindexing Spotlight by adding and removing volumes in Spotlight Privacy. This provides relief only temporarily. Within hours the process is again grinding the Mac to a halt.

Killing the corespotlightd in Activity Monitor. Again, this is at best only a temporary solution as the process will reinstate itself.

A "clean" install of macOS. First of all, no such process really exists. The OS recovery process simply reinstalls a new copy of the System files. Nobody reports this as a fix. An internal drive wipe and reformat, and restore from Time Machine is also unlikely to help, as it simply returns your Mac to its previous state. If the corespotlightd problem results from a corrupted file, the problem will likely simply be recreated in your reinstall. "Nuke and pave" might solve the problem if it caused by a format or directory issue on your startup volume. This does not seem to be the case, but if anyone has permanently cured the problem by this method, please report it.

What we do need to hear is from anyone who has spent time with Apple Support on this issue and been provided with solutions that actually work, or has new ideas about what causes it. Feels like we're on our own here, since Apple seems to be stumped.

Posted on Dec 19, 2024 11:21 AM

Top-ranking reply

ericmurphysf

Level 2

307 points

Posted on Jan 31, 2025 8:44 AM

Okay, I have a new hypothesis as to what's going on here with corespotlightd. This process is one of at least four that are responsible for macOS's Spotlight functionality. The three others are mds, mdworker, and md_stores. I cribbed the following descriptions of these three processes from the HowToGeek website:

The two processes [mds and mdworker] are part of Spotlight, the macOS search tool. The first, mds, stands for metadata server. This process manages the index used to give you quick search results. The second, mdworker, stands for metadata server worker. This does the hard work of actually indexing your files to make that quick searching possible.

And for md_stores, from the TechNewsToday site:

Mds_stores is the core indexing process of the macOS. On normal days, it usually takes up a noticeable [sic, probably should be un-noticeable] amount of CPU. However, when you reinstall your OS or add new files/directories, your system will automatically start to reindex these new databases, which sees the mds_stores CPU usage skyrocket.

The macOS Spotlight feature makes use of two processes for indexing the system database; mds and mds_stores. The mds (Metadata Server) process is responsible for tracking and recording files and folders in your operating system. md_stores then compiles and manages these mds metadata, which Spotlight later uses for searching certain documents within your OS.

So it may be that corespotlightd is in fact an unwitting victim of other processes' having gone awry. On my two Intel systems, by three months after installing macOS 15.0, metadata associated with Spotlight located at ~/library/metadata had reached half a terabyte on both systems. It sounds like this data was actually written out by either mdworker, mds_stores, or both. And then, corespotlightd has to wade through these gigabytes upon gigabytes of metadata to actually produce search results, and as that task gets harder and harder with more and more metadata being produced, eventually Spotlight search results (which includes search and smart folders through Mail) degrade to the point of uselessness.

While I haven't managed to halt the rapid growth of metadata on these two Intel systems (Apple Silicon Macs still have the issue but to a much milder degree), simply deleting the metadata out of the ~/library/metadata/Corespotlight and ~/library/metadata/SpotlightKnowledgeEvents (while leaving the folders themselves intact) resulted in a near-immediate improvement in three areas: greatly reduced use of storage space; vastly improved search results; and much lower processor utilization by corespotlightd.

As noted, this metadata still continues to pile up (especially if I have a large (>5 MB) Pages file open). But if I have to empty out these two folders once every few weeks until Apple resolves the issue, that's not the end of the world).

View in context

346 replies

ahernk1

Level 1

9 points

Apr 28, 2025 11:15 AM in response to Mitch Stone

I totally disagree. There is a strong inverse correlation between the size of the metadata file and performance of the computer. Whether it is a cause or effect is unknown, but there is definitely a relationship.

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

306 points

Apr 28, 2025 2:10 PM in response to fronesis47

The point being, we don't know the relationship between the size of this file and the performance hit, which we do know is caused by the process going berserk. As you say, the relationship between the two is anecdotal, at best. No cause and effect is known, at least not to us. So my completely practical advice for those who want to get on with their work is to not assume you have a problem unless you have the problem. If you have the problem, then try the variously suggested solutions. Attacking this the other way around is not doing yourself any favors. Or to put this in a familiar way, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

VimCedar

Level 1

16 points

May 9, 2025 7:59 PM in response to Mitch Stone

I just recently updated to Sequoia, am now on 15.4.1, and am getting the spinning wheel constantly to the point of it lagging with anything I do. The Activity Monitor showed that "corespotlightd" hogging up CPU, and I found this thread, and thankfully deleting the Metadata/CoreSpotlight folder worked... For a few hours or so, until that folder got all the way up close to 1GB! (from around 35MB)

So it's now May 2025, is Apple planning on a fix? Or did they just give up on Sequoia?

lcjhnsn

Level 1

10 points

May 14, 2025 5:50 AM in response to Mitch Stone

Switched to MS Word, problem solved.

I really wanted to use an Apple native tool for word processing, but the inability or unwillingness to actually do something about this issue over the 3 months since initial identification, has forced me back to the other side. Let me know when it is finally fixed and maybe I'll come back.

May 16, 2025 4:18 PM in response to VimCedar

Not to be too much of a wet blanket, but this does not appear to me to be a solved problem, at least on Intel Macs (where the problem was always way more severe in my experience). I deleted Spotlight metadata yesterday on my Intel iMac and it's already 35 GB. I've had a large Pages document open all day which is presumably why, but if I have to close a word processing document in order to prevent the OS from filling my entire SSD up, it's not a solved problem.

KWiPod

Level 2

158 points

May 18, 2025 4:35 AM in response to ericmurphysf

In my last post [April 3rd 2025], I noted that all the corespotlightd and kernal_task spiking had stopped after updating my M4 MacBook Air [10c/24GB/1TB] to Sequoia 15.4 (24E248).

I updated to Sequoia 15.5 (24F74) on May 12th and all remained well . . . until, unfortunately, today.

I am struggling to complete this post with frequent appearances of the SBBoD caused, AM confirms, by corespotlightd which is showing crazing spiking numbers like 375%! I paid a visit to System Settings/Spotlight and removed and re-added my MBA SSD to force a re-index. After re-indexing was complete, all seemed to be well but then, but once I opened Pages (and Keynote), corespotlightd spiked once again.

Unbelievably as I write this, all the spiking just stopped ... for quite 15 minutes . . . but it started up again and, after 15 minutes, it's still spiking [corespotlightd currently = 178%].

My Mac becomes effectively unusable when in spike city. I really hope that Apple is monitoring this thread.

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

306 points

May 18, 2025 9:18 AM in response to KWiPod

I can't find your earlier post, but you don't say here if the issue is connected to opening certain documents. I don't recall anyone reporting it with Keynote documents before. So this would be something new, if it is happening to you. Only some documents, or all?

It's already been established that reindexing Spotlight doesn't help. Sorry you had to go through that exercise.

Mitch Stone Author

Level 2

306 points

May 19, 2025 3:47 PM in response to ericmurphysf

ericmurphysf wrote:

That said, I have not seen either corespotlightd or the metadata processes (mdworker, mds_stores, etc.) using excessive CPU time (these days, at least for me, contactsd seems to me a major consumer of CPU time).

By now you know what I think about monitoring the metadata folder and assuming that, if it gets large, then you have a problem. With this observation perhaps you more fully understand my point. We don't know the cause and effect relationship, so I feel it is better to focus on the effect, and keep in mind that if you hadn't experienced the system performance issues you never would have concerned yourself with the size of the metadata files, or looked at Activity Monitor for running processes. This would all be happening in the background.

So here's a question: Have you ever tried turning Spotlight off, effectively, by exempting all volumes from indexing? What would happen to the size of metadata files then, I wonder?

May 27, 2025 10:44 PM in response to fronesis47

I agree, it seems to be a problem associated with Pages. I utilise the program for writing large reports and it is during the report writing that I notice the lag in keystrokes and selecting areas of the page, changing apps etc.

tostep

Level 1

14 points

May 30, 2025 8:19 AM in response to Mitch Stone

Thank God I found this thread, i thought that my new macbookpro m4 is mulfunctioning.

I observe that problem not only is linked with using large files in Pages, but I have same freezing effect using Keynote, while editing large presentations.

dcrouch1

Level 1

8 points

May 31, 2025 12:08 PM in response to fronesis47

Thanks so much for your work on this. My M2 Air has been heating up to a thousand degrees and pinwheeling for the last couple weeks (around when I installed a Sequoia update), and I was so confused because all that I was running was Pages (or occasionally Safari with a tab or two). But your explanation makes a lot of sense, since I constantly have several Pages docs open at a time for long periods of time. I checked that folder and sure enough: 102GB. I’m glad I finally thought to check the Activity Monitor which lead me here. Hopefully deleting the folder actually alleviates the issues.

Also, do you mind sharing the script you wrote? (In case this becomes a recurring need.)

PolyRod

Level 1

32 points

Jun 16, 2025 11:49 PM in response to PolyRod

For other reasons, I looked at Console yesterday. And found clear evidence of Pages and Numbers issues. Which at least superficially match up with my experience of problems. (I haven't grovelled through for exact times, etc.)

Would be happy to let Apple have full logs/reports.

fcoteb

Level 1

18 points

Jun 19, 2025 11:24 AM in response to Mitch Stone

After a couple of minor OS updates, this issue is still plaguing my M3 Pro MacBook Pro. Fingers crossed for the final update to macOS Sequoia, or the first of Tahoe.

And here I was thinking that Apple's own apps would work seamlessly in its own ecosystem.

Has someone else realised whether this issue drains the battery even when your MacBook is closed?

Jun 19, 2025 11:37 AM in response to fcoteb

fcoteb wrote:

…Has someone else realised whether this issue drains the battery even when your MacBook is closed?

In my experience, yes. If I leave a Pages file, especially a large one with many edits, open on my M2 Pro MBP, the battery charge overnight with the lid closed can go from 100% down to as low as 40%.

revpilot

Level 1

9 points

Jul 4, 2025 10:16 AM in response to Mitch Stone

I am sick of this corespotlightd problem. I spent $5,349.00 for this new MacBook Pro. I have contacted Apple support numerous times, shared my screen and let them see the CPU issue. All they have told me to do is when the corespotlightd takes up that much CPU, click quit. That is all I do now repeatedly. So, I am going back to using MS Office instead which is not my first choice. A lot of Mac users are now doing the same thing. You spend this much money and they won't fix the problem. My daughter had an Apple Air and needed to upgrade. She bought an HP Envy instead. Apple is going to lose business from loyal customers if this is not fixed quickly. My friends who are Apple, have started using MS Office as well. I told my wife, my next purchase will be Dell if Apple does not fix this quickly. It seems this billion dollar company really does not care for its loyal customers.

Continued corespotlightd process CPU overload issues