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DoFoT9

macrumors P6
Original poster
Jun 11, 2007
17,586
100
London, United Kingdom
howdyho every1.

i have recently been using a desktop manager instead of the finder (i.e. having the finder process not running). the program ive been using is 'path finder'. the stuff in my desktop has packed up to like 300 items...because ive been viewing the finder as a list instead of as the traditional icons in 'path finder'.

so anyway, i decided to open up finder for some reason, and the finder uses up 80%-90% of cpu... i thout maybe cauz it hasnt been opened for a month or two it was doing some kind of archive of spotlight or some crap like that.

so i thout id leave it, i went and played my tennis comp for like 6 hours and just came back and it was still using up the same amount. i donno whats going on. any ideas? i dont particularly want to be using 'path finder' forever!!!
 
Here's a weird little thing I noticed the other day. Long story short, on the desktop do apple-a to select all the files on your desktop, then deselect by clicking some blank space and see if that calms the finders cpu usage. If not, a log out and in will probably cure what ails you.
 
Well I'm pretty sure it's directly related to the 300 files on your desktop. Finder no likey too many files on the desktop. Make a new folder called "desktop removed" or whatever and select all items on your desktop (except your disks of course) and drop em in that folder. I betcha that your finder cpu usage plummets back to a normal range.
 
lol i did what u suggested. i liked the idea i thout it would work.... but nope. nothing happened, i left it for 5mins..still chilling at 90% usage.
 
Hmmm. Weird. In activity monitor you can click the "inspect" icon when the finder is selected and it'll give you some details. Those details are over my head, so I couldn't help you interpret what any of that stuff means, but you could see if anything obvious stands out as being wacky in that reported info.
 
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