Apple Notes Using CPU

[makdeniss]

have it on my macbook pro with normal resolution. Just kill notes here and there.

 

[johnalan]

We need a snow leopard year.

 

[Marz8]

I just finally noticed an issue with this. Maybe it's been an issue since I upgraded to Big Sur a couple months ago, but I don't know. I mostly use Notes with an MS Exchange account. So Gallery View only works with iCloud. That means no solution for someone like me.

I noticed this on my 2017 13" MBP. Have yet to see it on my Late 2015 iMac 27". This sucks because of how I differentiate my notes between my iCloud account and MS Exchange accounts. May have to look into using OneNote instead. :/ The advantage of that is it's very much like using Notes. For non-iCloud accounts in Notes, the app is very basic.

 

[jgbr]

I've tried everything and can not clear it. We do indeed need a snow leopard year as the bugs mount up.

I just kill notes now and again.

 

[Ryan G]

I am first encountering this issue as of today. I just purchased a new MacBook Pro 16" and migrated from my old MacBook Pro 15" (2018) from a time machine backup where I never had this issue and I use Notes quite a bit.
At first, I actually just thought the fans turning on was because I had a Windows machine running in VMWare Fusion but after a while I noticed that Notes was using a lot of CPU and I did a google search, found this thread, switched to Gallery mode and it's gone.
I was running 11.2.3 on my MacBook Pro yesterday with no issues and have this issue today on my brand new MacBook Pro also running 11.2.3

 

[SuperRob]

Happened across this thread when I noticed this on my new M1 MacBook Air and Big Sur 11.2.3. I have an external 4K screen on HDMI set to scaled (2x, so 1080p) and the internal screen set to the last setting (More Space). As soon as I set the internal display to default, the problem went away, even with the external screen still scaled. My guess is by using the 2x retina scaling for any screen, it doesn't cause the problem, because there's no additional scaling that need to happen ... 2x is normal.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Happened across this thread when I noticed this on my new M1 MacBook Air and Big Sur 11.2.3. I have an external 4K screen on HDMI set to scaled (2x, so 1080p) and the internal screen set to the last setting (More Space). As soon as I set the internal display to default, the problem went away, even with the external screen still scaled. My guess is by using the 2x retina scaling for any screen, it doesn't cause the problem, because there's no additional scaling that need to happen ... 2x is normal.

Woo hoo! I think you're right! I just set laptop to default and notes back to list view - I cannot get notes to use high CPU. NICE!!!!

 

[SuperRob]

Woo hoo! I think you're right! I just set laptop to default and notes back to list view - I cannot get notes to use high CPU. NICE!!!!

What's weird is the "Default" for the internal screen on the M1 Air is a scaled resolution! (True 2x should be 1280x800; default is 1680x1050.) So I don't think my hypothesis is totally correct, but hey, at least I found a workable solution.

 

[SuperRob]

Follow-Up: When detached from the second screen, my Air goes back to the More Space setting, and Notes doesn't start sucking down CPU. So it's some odd combination of being connected to an external screen AND scaling. I guess I'm not surprised this got past testing somehow. Hopefully Apple can fix it at some point, but it's certainly not a deal breaker. This thing is great.

 

[inkhorn]

MacOS 11.4 beta, and this is STILL a bug. :<

Gallery mode (thank you @BigMcGuire), or ensuring the internal display isn't scaled (thank you @SuperRob) are still the workarounds, or my fans come on and a CPU is pinned at 60%.

Submitted with Feedback Assistant as : FB9085744

 

[ksec]

There is something seriously wrong with iCloud Syncing in Big Sur.

Safari Bookmark, iClouddagent and Notes all have these same problem.

 

[druPPa23]

Even with 11.3 it hasn't improved a bit

 

[BigMcGuire]

Are those of us who use external monitors that rare? lol. Most of the other Mac owners I know either use their MBP or an iMac so this hasn't affected them. <shrug>.

 

[sameting]

I don't know if it's a permanent fix but I read @SuperRob 's post and it didn't work for me at first try because i set my display to default resolution under "scaled" radio button. Then and did these steps:

-open notes app and enable list view
-open activity monitor and check notes app's cpu usage (%60)
-open system preferences / display / display tab
-Set resolution to first radio button that says "default for display", not scaled / default

and poof. Excessive cpu usage is gone. Even with reopening and using notes app. I hope this is a permanent fix.

Btw im using my 13" mbp 2017 (Big Sur 11.2.3) without any external monitors right now.

Update: I changed my resolution back to scaled / more space, I updated to Big Sur to 11.3 and restarted my mac and still notes app working quite well without using too much cpu.

 

[GrandpaRick]

Bro, checking "use Rosetta to open" for Notes.app decreased the CPU usage for me!

 

[hobspain]

Bro, checking "use Rosetta to open" for Notes.app decreased the CPU usage for me!

Well, this made it for me. I don't have an external display and I have tried all the suggested fixes for resolution changes on my M1 MBA (11.3.1) and they didn't work at all. Gointo to Rosetta is the only fix that works, which is terribly sad because this is an Apple app that has to go through emulation instead of native in order to work properly and this is quite shameful, to be honest.

 

[druPPa23]

Bro, checking "use Rosetta to open" for Notes.app decreased the CPU usage for me!

Thanks! That seems to fixed it.

 

[johnnymcc]

Just discovered this bug on my M1 MacBook Pro, noticed my battery had drained more than usual, and check out Activity Monitor to discover 60% for Notes. Switched to gallery and then back to list view and saw it drop down to normal.

 

[Julianne]

Has anyone found a fix for this? it is so annoying and gallery mode is not a real option for me i have about 260 notes..

 

[global_variable]

This strange workaround works:

The high CPU usage happens when you select the top note. In the list view, if you scroll the list of notes just enough such that your first note in the list moves off of the viewable scrollport, the CPU percentage immediately drops. (You need enough notes in the list, otherwise shrink the window height). As soon as you scroll back up all the way to the top, the high CPU consumption returns. The gallery view is fine because it avoids the scroll pane altogether.

That list view scroll pane is the source of the bug. This only happens on my 2018 15" MacBook Pro. It's fine on my 2019 16" Pro.

 

[awulf]

The high CPU usage happens when you select the top note. In the list view, if you scroll the list of notes just enough such that your first note in the list moves off of the viewable scrollport, the CPU percentage immediately drops. (You need enough notes in the list, otherwise shrink the window height). As soon as you scroll back up all the way to the top, the high CPU consumption returns. The gallery view is fine because it avoids the scroll pane altogether.

Exact same thing happens for me on my 2018 MacBook Pro 15" i9, and that work around works for me too.

 

[pshufd]

I noticed this on my M1 mini today. It's likely been there but I very seldom reboot. What I see is high CPU usage for a very long time and then it stops. I have a lot of Notes and some of them are very long. They are almost all just text notes. I am slowly archiving these off to another program. But I also noticed another problem with Notes on Big Sur:

On my 2015 MacBook Pro running Mojave, Notes uses 200 MB of RAM. Why is it using up 1.02 GB on Big Sur? I would not really mind if I were using my Windows desktop (with 128 GB of RAM) but these M1 Macs are limited to only 16 GB.

 

[damian]

I just reported this bug to Apple at https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/

I encourage others to do the same.

Ironically and inexplicably, the bug stopped occurring while I was reproducing it for my bug report to Apple.

I wish I knew why or how the bug stopped occurring.

If I figure it out, I'll post it here.

In the meantime, I encourage people to file bug reports at https://feedbackassistant.apple.com/

If you do so, I suggest you reference my bug report (#FB9505276) and the bug report referenced above/here (#FB9085744).

Here is the text of my report, for anyone who might want to copy it:

1. Open Activity Monitor
2. Open Notes.app
3. switch from View > As Gallery to View > As List
4. Watch % CPU skyrocket to ~67% for both WindowServer and Notes processes in Activity Monitor, and hear fan start spinning
5. switch from View > As List back to View > As Gallery in Notes.app
6. Watch % CPU plummet to about 5-10% for WindowServer and 0% for Notes.app processes in Activity Monitor, and hear fan stop spinning

Note: This bug is described in detail at:
(a) Feedback Assistant Report #FB9085744 (according to https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-notes-using-cpu.2268511/post-29804908)
(b) https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apple-notes-using-cpu.2268511/
(c) https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252044846

By the way, I'm using MacOS 11.5.1 on a 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro without an external display.

 

[adrianlondon]

I've noticed from prior experience that linking a feedback report to other people's makes no difference to Apple. They mostly don't read them until some AI script has gone through them, and they've not programmed it to look for FB numbers.

Your best bet, if you eventually want to see something other than "none" in the "reported by others" field is to make sure you pick the same components and use the same key words in the Feedback title. Assuming, of course, that it actually is the same issue.

 

[Phat^Trance]

i have the exact same problem on my macbook air m1 but not on my mac mini m1).

Any fix for this yet?

the rotetta fix doesnt work, same with the screen scaling. Only thing that works is the gallery view.
i have 9 notes total