Cloudd using 100% CPU 24/7 for months now

Question

Level 1

12 points

Cloudd using 100% CPU 24/7 for months now

I'd say about a year ago I started noticing "cloudd" cloudKit daemon running at full CPU utilization. I'm a developer and have gone through several settings to try and isolate what is sync'ing / broken with the cloudKit implementation but so far nothing has helped. See screenshot where I turned off every app that is syncing with iCloud and it still was 100% utilization.

But, there are times especially lately where I'm pushing my MBP M1 harder (loading VMs, doing compiles / testing) and now I need to get this resolved.

I've seen others on the web complain about this but I haven't a found clear solution. How do I either

A) Configure iCloud sync / cloudd to work correctly and only use CPU when it's actually sync'ing something or better yet, use even less than 100% when it's sync'ing something

OR

B) Completely eliminate cloudd from running at all (is this even possible?) until either I want it to run and start syncing stuff or just turn it off for good and never run it.

I can confirm that in my case, cloudd is always at max CPU usage... And, my I only have code editors and a web browser running most days. My internet is fast and therefore even if it was trying to upload a ton every day for some reason, it should be able to complete fairly quickly then go nearly idle.

At this point, I'm considering killing my iCloud services completely just to eliminate the problem and just to be thorough I will do some network diagnostics to see where exactly it is connecting to and try to inspect what it is sending. I'm concerned it's possible I might have a virus that has infected cloudd.

Thanks

Posted on Feb 28, 2025 3:09 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

215,382 points

Feb 28, 2025 4:16 PM in response to d33p-code

There are no self propagating viruses for Macs. There is malware but they need the user to help install usually erroneously by clicking on a link on a website or and link in an email or text.

Do you have iCloud Photos enabled? If so that could be the cause as Photos is searching your Photos library for people, places and things (like tables, cars, cats, dogs, etc). It also searches every frame in videos.

Please download and run Etrecheck. The free version is sufficient. Be sure to give it Full Disk Access.

Copy the report as shown in this animated screenshot

and use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine the cause of the problem.

Reply

Answer 2

d33p-code Author

Level 1

12 points

Feb 28, 2025 5:04 PM in response to Old Toad

I disabled Photos app for iCloud and utilization didn't change. So you're not aware of cloudd running 100% all day every day? I've found several posts online saying same thing. But, no fix that I can find yet. I'll keep you posted.

Reply

Answer 3

d33p-code Author

Level 1

12 points

Apr 10, 2025 11:11 AM in response to d33p-code

This is still a problem... I also read that Mac does client side scanning so maybe this process / cloudKit is doing that. Constantly scanning my mac for who knows what... Even if it was/is it would ideal to at least be able to 1) prevent it or 2) control the frequency or priority of the scanning... At this point, I think it's time to move all my dev work to Linux. I'm doing a lot of high CPU work lately and much more to come in the near future and I can't have rogue process/es eating up my CPU...

Reply

Answer 4

etresoft

Level 9

56,326 points

Apr 10, 2025 11:54 AM in response to d33p-code

What you're reporting is not normal.

d33p-code wrote:

This is still a problem... I also read that Mac does client side scanning so maybe this process / cloudKit is doing that. Constantly scanning my mac for who knows what...

That's not it.

At this point, I think it's time to move all my dev work to Linux.

Virtually all problems encountered here in the forums are self-imposed.

It sounds like you aren't coming from a Mac background if you are considering switching to Linux. You probably weren't aware of how much destruction 3rd party system modifications cause. Such apps are extremely popular. This forum would be a ghost town without them.

I can't begin to guess which app, or combination of apps, might be causing the problem. There are so many and so many of them are so, so bad. And as I said before, they are extremely popular.

Pro tip: the more likely a particular app is touted or promoted on the internet, the more likely it will be to cause problems.

Reply