recorded incident · photoanalysisd

photoanalysisd ran hot after an update

real — but benign

A Mac sat idle after a macOS update — then the fans spun up. This is a recorded replay of what CoreGuard would have shown you, observation first and interpretation second, while photoanalysisd re-indexed the photo library.

photoanalysisd runawayrecorded example · not your Mac

a post-update photo re-index · ~6 h compressed into one scrub

temp

cooling

the culprit

cpu temperature · full recording

what's eating your maclive in the app · recorded here

photoanalysisd

182%

09:34observedphotoanalysisd rises to ~165% CPU
10:10observedCPU die 65°C and climbing — it idled at 46°C
10:34observedfans respond: 1,500 → ~3,900 RPM
10:58alertCoreGuard alert: photoanalysisd has held >150% CPU for over an hour — photo-library re-indexing, common after a macOS update
12:10interpretedheavy but legitimate: it finishes on its own — killing it only restarts the job
13:34observedindexing completes — process falls back to single-digit CPU
14:22interpretedtemps and fans settle on their own. Nothing to fix — you just knew WHY the whole time

10:58 · recorded example

CoreGuard alert: photoanalysisd has held >150% CPU for over an hour — photo-library re-indexing, common after a macOS update

Drag the slider to replay the whole incident. Every value here is a recorded, hand-authored example — not telemetry from a real Mac.

Recorded timeline — 09:34 photoanalysisd rises to ~165% CPU · 10:10 CPU die 65°C and climbing — it idled at 46°C · 10:34 fans respond: 1,500 → ~3,900 RPM · 10:58 CoreGuard alert: photoanalysisd has held >150% CPU for over an hour — photo-library re-indexing, common after a macOS update · 12:10 heavy but legitimate: it finishes on its own — killing it only restarts the job · 13:34 indexing completes — process falls back to single-digit CPU · 14:22 temps and fans settle on their own. Nothing to fix — you just knew WHY the whole time

1 What you'd observe

Nothing looked wrong at first: an idle Mac, lid open, 46°C. Then one process — photoanalysisd — climbed past 150% CPU and stayed there. The CPU die crept from 46°C into the low 70s and the fans answered, 1,500 → ~3,900 RPM. On its own, “a process pinning the CPU while the fans roar” is exactly what a scary problem looks like. That's the whole point.

2 What it means

photoanalysisd is Apple's photo-analysis daemon. A long spell of high CPU right after an update is almost always the photo library being re-indexed — heavy, but legitimate work that finishes on its own. CoreGuard's job here isn't to declare a verdict; it's to name the process, show the load has held for over an hour, and give you the context: this is re-indexing, common after an update. Killing it only restarts the job.

3 How it resolves

Left alone, the indexing completed and the process fell back to single-digit CPU; temperature and fans settled on their own. Nothing needed fixing. The value was never a fix — it was knowing what and why the entire time, instead of guessing whether your Mac was dying.

The full dataset. Every reading in this recorder — temperatures, fan RPM, the process series, and the event log — as one sanitized JSON file. It's a hand-authored example, not telemetry; reuse it freely.

Download dataset (JSON)

photoanalysisd ran hot after an update

1 What you'd observe

2 What it means

3 How it resolves

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