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finder high cpu usage

Tagbert

Tagbert

macrumors 603
Original poster
Jun 22, 2011
6,308
7,334
Seattle
Has anyone else seen what seems like unreasonably high cpu usage for Finder. In idle with around 4 tabs open, Activity Monitor shows Finder using between 60-70% CPU. That seems like a lot when Finder is just running in the background and not doing any particular tasks. Any ideas?

2019 MBP 15", 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD
 
Tagbert said:
Has anyone else seen what seems like unreasonably high cpu usage for Finder. In idle with around 4 tabs open, Activity Monitor shows Finder using between 60-70% CPU. That seems like a lot when Finder is just running in the background and not doing any particular tasks. Any ideas?

2019 MBP 15", 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Click to expand...

Nope. Do you have any Finder/FS extensions like Google Drive, Adobe CC, Dropbox?
 
Tagbert said:
Has anyone else seen what seems like unreasonably high cpu usage for Finder. In idle with around 4 tabs open, Activity Monitor shows Finder using between 60-70% CPU. That seems like a lot when Finder is just running in the background and not doing any particular tasks. Any ideas?

2019 MBP 15", 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Click to expand...
yup, same here ... it was around 65% with 2 windows and each 5-6 tabs open, I closed 1 window and it's down to around 45% ... I have 6 external drives/containers. I had 1 Adobe extension but disabled that.
Started on my iMac ~ 2 weeks ago when I upgraded from Mojave to Big Sure.
Edit: WindowServer is using 100%+
 
Last edited:
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Are you by chance running the Xcode 13 beta? It's been making processes like Spotlight use up a huge amount of CPU when I put it in the background. It stops instantly when I quit Xcode.
 
I configured spotlight to not search on any volume, including Macintosh HD ... problem seems to be resolved

Edit: never mind, checking now, an hour later and it is back to ~ 45% ...
 
Last edited:
jz0309 said:
I configured spotlight to not search on any volume, including Macintosh HD ... problem seems to be resolved

Edit: never mind, checking now, an hour later and it is back to ~ 45% ...
Click to expand...
This morning Finder CPU usage is negligible again…
I will hero spotlight basically disabled as I don’t use it anyway, but really no idea what is going on…
Looking forward the the release of 11.5 at this point
 
Tagbert said:
Has anyone else seen what seems like unreasonably high cpu usage for Finder. In idle with around 4 tabs open, Activity Monitor shows Finder using between 60-70% CPU. That seems like a lot when Finder is just running in the background and not doing any particular tasks. Any ideas?

2019 MBP 15", 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Click to expand...

FWIW - I have been watching Activity Monitor - once in a while - over the past few months

I noticed a while ago that Avid / Pro Tools was showing up in Activity Monitor constantly even when I was not using it - which was seldom - I uninstalled an am no longer using it

Also I noticed that when I had multiple tabs open in Safari or FireFox - WindowServer would become very active along side these 2 browsers and the more tabs open the higher the CPU usage and Higher temperatures and sometimes the fan would activate to cool the CPU

Perhaps the use of tabs in Safari / FireFox or other browsers are running ad's and video's and other audio streams in the background? Using up CPU and causing heat issues?

just a theory
 
Yes, WindowServer is another one that pushes the CPU for no obvious reason. Browser windows are a candidate.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I’ll keep trying some things. It’s not a major problem but probably has some impact and it’s annoying because its a mystery.
 
Tagbert said:
Yes, WindowServer is another one that pushes the CPU for no obvious reason. Browser windows are a candidate.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I’ll keep trying some things. It’s not a major problem but probably has some impact and it’s annoying because its a mystery.
Click to expand...
Any updates from your end?
I think I have resolved mine, did contact Apple support, did NVRAM, SMC reset, booted in safe mode ... no change, then started to unplug external hard drives, and started with the spinners - and it stopped, I mean Finder CPU usage was normal.
Turned out that my backup drive (I erased the entire drive ~ 1 month ago and tarted TM backup from scratch) did not let me run FirstAid, it returned an error code ... erased the drive again and now FirstAid is not reporting issues anymore, but I will keep a close eye on it.
Apple support through it might have been Finder recalculating file size on the drive over and over but that I not positive ...
 
No change for me but I haven't been digging into it.

My personal MBA/M1 does run Dropbox but there is no change when I turn it off. There is an external SSD but haven't seen any difference with it detached.

My work MBP/Intel dose not run Dropbox and does not have an external drive.

Both tend to show Finder hovering around 65-68% on idle.

I do keep 5-6 finder tabs open most of the time for access to files for various projects. Don't see how that would be a significant CPU load.
 
jz0309 said:
Edit: WindowServer is using 100%+
Click to expand...

MisterSavage said:
I've been having to reboot periodically because WindowServer eventually starts using over a GB of memory.
Click to expand...

I'm having an issue where WindowServer is using 100+ % CPU and 800 MB of memory (just looked for first time) when I use the TouchBar.

Rebooting seems to fix it for a bit.

forums.macrumors.com

11.5+: TouchBar, CapsLock usage causes beachball and overheating, WindowServer high CPU

I noticed with macos 11.5 and 11.5.1, sometimes when I'm watching a video (youtube in Chrome or Safari or Spotify) when I try to change the volume up or down the visual representation on screen of the volume changing will be very slow (a few seconds for each tick instead of instantly) and the...
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
Yes, I'm frequently curious what WindowServer is doing with all those resources. I assume that it is handling tasks for some of the applications.
 
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Tagbert said:
Has anyone else seen what seems like unreasonably high cpu usage for Finder. In idle with around 4 tabs open, Activity Monitor shows Finder using between 60-70% CPU. That seems like a lot when Finder is just running in the background and not doing any particular tasks. Any ideas?

2019 MBP 15", 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD
Click to expand...
I've been seeing what may be the same problem on Big Sur 11.6.4, although there might be several possible causes. In my case Finder was using about 100% presumably one cpu which was looping on something. I turned off my wi-fi internet connection for a short while and the Finder cpu use dropped to near 0. It did not start up again when I turned the wi-fi back on. I'm not using iCloud Drive or other Finder extension for cloud storage, so I'm not sure what Finder was doing and got stuck on.

I'm also a little surprised that WindowServer always seems to be using 30 to 50% of a CPU even when I'm not doing anything, but that is a completely different issue and maybe is justified.
 
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Pearl Wisdom said:
I've been seeing what may be the same problem on Big Sur 11.6.4, although there might be several possible causes. In my case Finder was using about 100% presumably one cpu which was looping on something. I turned off my wi-fi internet connection for a short while and the Finder cpu use dropped to near 0. It did not start up again when I turned the wi-fi back on. I'm not using iCloud Drive or other Finder extension for cloud storage, so I'm not sure what Finder was doing and got stuck on.

I'm also a little surprised that WindowServer always seems to be using 30 to 50% of a CPU even when I'm not doing anything, but that is a completely different issue and maybe is justified.
Click to expand...
I wonder if my problem might have something to do with Time Machine. I have TM backups on a local disk but also a Time Capsule that I'm usually not connected to. The Finder CPU went to 100% again, after the TM backup was done on the local disk and then I think the MacBook went to sleep, but when I woke it up I found the Finder CPU at ~ 100% again. I wonder if it might be stuck doing something looking for the Time Capsule that is not on my local network at the moment (it's at another house). Switching the wi-fi off and on fixed the problem again.
 
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Pearl Wisdom said:
I wonder if my problem might have something to do with Time Machine. I have TM backups on a local disk but also a Time Capsule that I'm usually not connected to. The Finder CPU went to 100% again, after the TM backup was done on the local disk and then I think the MacBook went to sleep, but when I woke it up I found the Finder CPU at ~ 100% again. I wonder if it might be stuck doing something looking for the Time Capsule that is not on my local network at the moment (it's at another house). Switching the wi-fi off and on fixed the problem again.
Click to expand...
I also just discovered that unmounting the TM local disk (about 10 minutes after the last backup finished) also caused the Finder 100% CPU to stop. So an additional solution to turning wi-fi off and on, at least for me.
 
To minimize CPU usage on Mac, you can begin with force quitting programs that are not in use. Further, you can also try the below troubleshooting methods to fix Mac's high CPU usage issue:

1. Switch the USB Charging Port
2. Move your Mac to a Cooler Room
3. Restart your Mac
4. Boot into Safe Mode
5. Reset SMC (System Management Controller)
6. Reset NVRAM

Hope it helps!
 
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