photolibraryd is using excessive CPU? Solution.

This tutorial helps you understand what photolibraryd is and why the photolibraryd process is using excessive CPU on Mac and MacBook computers. You will also learn the solution to improve Mac performance when this process consumes a significant percentage of memory and processor resources.

When a Mac or MacBook experiences performance issues, it is often due to an application or system process consuming high CPU or RAM resources. One such process with significant resource consumption is photolibraryd.

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What is photolibraryd on macOS?

photolibraryd is a process in the macOS operating system. It is responsible for managing and organizing the library of photos and videos in the Photos application. The photolibraryd process handles all information associated with media in the photo library, including metadata, album organization, thumbnail generation, face recognition in photos, and synchronization with iCloud if enabled.

photolibraryd is using excessive CPU? Solution.

photolibraryd excessively uses CPU and memory, depending on the size and complexity of the photo library in the Photos application. In some cases, it can cause performance issues such as slowing down the Mac, overheating, and quick draining of the MacBook battery.

Here are some of the causes that can lead to excessive utilization of system resources by the photolibraryd process:

A large photo library or import many pictures and videos in a very short time.
Sync photos with iCloud. Especially if you have a lot of pictures and videos in it iCloud, until the synchronization is complete, photolibraryd uses excessive CPU.
Identifying people in photos.
Recent changes to the photo library.

To solve the problem of excessive consumption of CPU resources by photolibraryd, you can do the following:

1. Open the Photos app and check if there are synchronization or indexing processes in progress. Wait for these processes to end and see if the CPU usage drops.

2. Check the settings iCloud. If sync with iCloud is enabled, check its status. In some cases, an interrupted or stuck sync can lead to excessive resource consumption. You can try temporarily disabling sync iCloud and see if the problem persists.

3. Close the application Photos and restart it. You can also consider a system reboot to fix temporary issues.

4. Reduce the size of your photo library as much as possible by deleting unwanted photos or transferring them to external storage drives.

5. Turn off identifying people in photos. Especially when you have many photos, identifying a person requires scanning all the images in detail. It is one of the most common causes in which photolibraryd uses excessive CPU.

6. Repair the application library Photos. To perform a library repair, close the application completely Photos, hold down the “Options” and “Command” keys, double-click the application icon Photos.