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lunarworks

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jun 17, 2003
1,972
5,213
Toronto, Canada
I know the new version of Photos in macOS Sierra analyzes all of your photos for faces and over 3,000 objects... but the analysis process runs whether Photos is open or not.

This is a problem for me. I have something around 30,000 photos (my library dates back to 1999.) It's going to be running for a long time, and when it runs it hogs the CPU. If I kill it, it re-spawns half an hour later. If I put my Mac to sleep, I come back to it later with the process running.

The biggest reason this is a problem is because today it's 35°C in my city (Toronto), we're under a heat warning, I don't have air conditioning, and my MBP has already locked up and reset twice today because of overheating due to this stupid resource-intensive process.

I wish it had the sense to throttle back and not go wild.
 

Feenician

macrumors 603
Jun 13, 2016
5,313
5,100
35 degrees C is upper limit of where a Macbook or iMac is meant to be operated*. If yours is resetting at or below that temperature you have a hardware issue. If its above that temperature in your house then you have a another issue entirely and you will, sooner or later, damage your Mac's hardware, almost certainly the file system at the very least.

Either way, photoanslysisd is not your problem.

*https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201640
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp634?locale=en_US
 

vista980622

macrumors 6502
Aug 2, 2012
369
177
J
I know the new version of Photos in macOS Sierra analyzes all of your photos for faces and over 3,000 objects... but the analysis process runs whether Photos is open or not.

This is a problem for me. I have something around 30,000 photos (my library dates back to 1999.) It's going to be running for a long time, and when it runs it hogs the CPU. If I kill it, it re-spawns half an hour later. If I put my Mac to sleep, I come back to it later with the process running.

The biggest reason this is a problem is because today it's 35°C in my city (Toronto), we're under a heat warning, I don't have air conditioning, and my MBP has already locked up and reset twice today because of overheating due to this stupid resource-intensive process.

I wish it had the sense to throttle back and not go wild.

1. Disable System Integrity Protection.
2. Navigate to /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PhotoAnalysis.framework/Versions/A/Support
3. Find the photoanalysisd file and move it to Trash
4. Empty Trash
5. Re-enable System Integrity Protection.
 
Last edited:

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,554
43,530
What happens if you use something other then Photos, such as Lightroom?
 

mixel

macrumors 68000
Jan 12, 2006
1,730
976
Leeds, UK
I know the new version of Photos in macOS Sierra analyzes all of your photos for faces and over 3,000 objects... but the analysis process runs whether Photos is open or not.

This is a problem for me. I have something around 30,000 photos (my library dates back to 1999.) It's going to be running for a long time, and when it runs it hogs the CPU. If I kill it, it re-spawns half an hour later. If I put my Mac to sleep, I come back to it later with the process running.

The biggest reason this is a problem is because today it's 35°C in my city (Toronto), we're under a heat warning, I don't have air conditioning, and my MBP has already locked up and reset twice today because of overheating due to this stupid resource-intensive process.

I wish it had the sense to throttle back and not go wild.
I have a similar number of photos, many in RAW formats.. i just leave it running overnight. It's a bit weird its hogging your CPU to that extent though? Im running a 2012 iMac and it seems to happily pootle along in the background without impacting much at all.
 

mbern1008

macrumors regular
Nov 5, 2013
101
13
I also have a library of over 35K of pictures. Mine has been stuck at about 4000 for a few days now. I don't know what's keeping it from finishing but I wish there was a way to start it from scratch to find out
 
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honam1021

macrumors regular
Nov 4, 2012
240
105

smjpenn91

macrumors newbie
Nov 25, 2010
1
0
As of March 2020 these instructions are not working for me. I have used them on every version of MacOS since the method was posted but as of Catalina, I cannot delete photoanalysisid even with system integrity protection disabled. This is a huge frustration for me and would appreciate any suggestions that other users can offer.
 

bogdanw

macrumors 603
Mar 10, 2009
5,705
2,743
As of March 2020 these instructions are not working for me. I have used them on every version of MacOS since the method was posted but as of Catalina, I cannot delete photoanalysisid even with system integrity protection disabled. This is a huge frustration for me and would appreciate any suggestions that other users can offer.
In Catalina, after disabling SIP, you have to mount system as writable with
Code:
sudo mount -wu /
After that, you can use
Code:
sudo launchctl unload -wF /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.photoanalysisd.plist
 
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