Fix mediaanalysisd using high CPU and gigabytes of disk space in macOS

What is mediaanalysisd on Mac?

mediaanalysisd is the Media Analysis Daemon in macOS. It sits underneath features like Photos search, Visual Look Up, and Live Text, quietly processing your photos and videos in the background. Its job is to recognize what’s in your media and make that information searchable and context-aware.

In practical terms, mediaanalysisd helps macOS:

• recognize objects, scenes, and people in images;
• detect text in pictures via Live Text;
• power Visual Look Up and similar “smart” features;
• make photo and video searches in Photos, Spotlight, and Siri more accurate.

Under normal circumstances you barely notice this work. The daemon spins up, analyzes new or changed media, and then yields the CPU again. You’re most likely to see it at the top of Activity Monitor right after you enable or re-enable iCloud Photos, import or restore a large Photos library, perform a major macOS upgrade that changes indexing behavior, or connect an external drive full of images and videos.

Short, intense bursts of CPU and disk activity are expected when those events happen. The problem starts when mediaanalysisd never really settles down and its cache folder begins to swallow gigabytes of storage for no obvious reason.

mediaanalysisd-access

You may also see a separate process called mediaanalysisd-access in Activity Monitor. This is an auxiliary XPC service that lives inside the MediaAnalysisAccess private framework and acts as a broker between apps and the core media analysis engine, enforcing sandbox boundaries and handling requests to analyze specific pieces of media. In practice, it tends to appear alongside mediaanalysisd whenever macOS or an app leans on the media intelligence stack.

When mediaanalysisd is noisy but still normal

Before treating mediaanalysisd as a problem, it’s worth understanding when heavy activity is expected and self-limiting.

Typical “noisy but normal” cases:

• You’ve just upgraded macOS to a new major version.
• You turned iCloud Photos on (or off and back on).
• You imported tens of thousands of photos or migrated your Photos library to a new Mac.
• You moved your Photos library to a different drive or location.
• You enabled Visual Look Up and Live Text for the first time.

In these situations, mediaanalysisd and its companion processes chew through your media library to build or rebuild their databases. On a large library, that can take many hours, especially if the Mac isn’t left idle for long.

If CPU eventually subsides and the com.apple.mediaanalysisd cache folder stops growing, this is simply housekeeping.

If, on the other hand, the CPU stays high for days and the cache keeps ballooning, you are dealing with a loop rather than normal indexing.

When com.apple.mediaanalysisd clearly misbehaves

Signs that mediaanalysisd has gone off the rails rather than performing regular work include:

• Persistent high CPU (often 80–100%) even when the Mac is idle.
• Fans and heat that only calm down when you manually kill the process.
• A com.apple.mediaanalysisd folder under your user Library taking up tens of gigabytes.
• Storage pressure warnings while you know you don’t have that many photos or videos.
• The cache shrinks only briefly after a restart and then starts growing again.

At this point, the daemon is more of a problem than a feature. The good news is that you can usually fix it with targeted cleanup and a few configuration changes.

mediaanalysisd-access memory usage

On newer macOS builds, mediaanalysisd-access has started to show up in more diagnostics and EtreCheck reports as a notable memory consumer. It’s not unusual on affected systems to see it holding hundreds of megabytes or even a couple of gigabytes of RAM while heavy media analysis is underway, especially on machines with large photo libraries or lots of “smart” features enabled.

In isolation, a high “Memory” figure in Activity Monitor isn’t automatically a bug — macOS will happily cache machine-learning models and intermediate data in RAM as long as overall memory pressure stays low. The red flags are when mediaanalysisd-access remains near the top of the list even while the Mac is idle, swap usage starts climbing, or you receive system warnings about memory pressure.

If that’s the case, treat mediaanalysisd-access the same way you treat mediaanalysisd itself: follow the cache cleanup steps, let Photos and Spotlight finish their work, and rein in any directories or libraries that keep forcing the subsystem to re-analyze the same media. Once the underlying load is under control, both processes should drop back to modest, intermittent memory usage.

Step-by-step: Fix mediaanalysisd CPU and disk usage on Mac

Follow the steps below in order. In many cases, you’ll resolve the problem halfway through this sequence.

1. Confirm that mediaanalysisd is the real culprit

1.1 Open Activity Monitor and check CPU

• Open Activity Monitor from Applications → Utilities.
• Go to the CPU tab and sort by % CPU.
• Look for mediaanalysisd (or MediaAnalysis) near the top of the list and note how high its CPU usage is and how long it has been running.
• While you’re there, also note whether mediaanalysisd-access appears and how active it is.

1.2 Check memory and energy impact

• Switch to the Memory tab to see if mediaanalysisd or mediaanalysisd-access are consuming significant RAM.
• On portable Macs, check the Energy tab to confirm whether it is among the top energy-hungry processes.

1.3 Inspect the mediaanalysisd cache size

• In Finder, click Go → Go to Folder… (or press Shift–Command–G).
• Paste the following path and press Return:
  ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mediaanalysisd/Data/Library/Caches/
  
• Locate the com.apple.mediaanalysisd folder.
• Select it and press Command–I to open Get Info, then look at the Size value.

If this folder is in the tens of gigabytes, and mediaanalysisd is constantly near the top of Activity Monitor, you’re dealing with the problematic behavior described in this guide.

2. Give analysis a controlled chance to finish

Before deleting anything, let the system complete whatever legitimate analysis it is trying to do.

2.1 Keep your Mac awake and plugged in

• Plug in your MacBook to power, or make sure your desktop Mac has a stable power source.
• In System Settings → Displays, adjust sleep settings to allow the Mac to stay awake longer while the display sleeps.
• Close heavy apps and leave the machine idle for several hours, preferably overnight.

2.2 Keep Photos open during indexing

• Launch the Photos app and leave it open in the background.
• Make sure your main library is selected as the System Photo Library in Photos settings.
• Watch for any “Updating” or “Analyzing” messages; these may indicate active but legitimate processing.

2.3 Update macOS

• Open System Settings → General → Software Update.
• Install any available updates or security patches.
• Restart your Mac if required.

After this, monitor Activity Monitor again. If mediaanalysisd calms down and the cache stops growing, you can stop here. If not, move on.

3. Safely delete com.apple.mediaanalysisd cache files

This step usually reclaims the bulk of your lost disk space.

3.1 Back up your Mac

• Connect your Time Machine drive or other backup storage.
• Run a current backup of your system.

This is a precaution in case a later step exposes a pre-existing library problem.

3.2 Open the mediaanalysisd cache folder

• In Finder, use Go → Go to Folder… (Shift–Command–G).
• Enter the path:
  ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mediaanalysisd/Data/Library/Caches/
  
• Press Return to open the folder.

3.3 Move the com.apple.mediaanalysisd cache to the Trash

• Quit Photos if it’s running.
• In the Caches directory, locate the com.apple.mediaanalysisd folder.
• Drag this folder to the Trash.
• Empty the Trash to immediately free the occupied disk space.

You’re not deleting your photos or videos here – only analysis and cache data that macOS can rebuild.

3.4 Restart your Mac

• Click the Apple menu and choose Restart.
• After reboot, open Activity Monitor again and keep an eye on mediaanalysisd and mediaanalysisd-access.
• Recheck the cache folder size after some time to confirm it’s not ballooning as quickly as before.

4. Optionally clear mediaanalysis caches inside the Photos library

Some setups keep additional media analysis caches inside the Photos library bundle itself, especially when libraries have been moved between drives.

4.1 Locate and open your Photos library

• Open your Pictures folder and find Photos Library.photoslibrary.
• If your library is on an external drive, make sure that drive is mounted.
• Control-click the library and choose Show Package Contents.

4.2 Remove internal analysis caches

• Inside the package, look for folders under paths such as
  private/com.apple.mediaanalysisd/caches/ or private/com.apple.photoanalysisd/caches/
  
• Delete the contents of these caches folders only. Do not delete other items inside the library package.

4.3 Reopen Photos and let it rebuild

• Launch Photos.
• If prompted, allow it to Repair or update the library.
• Leave it open for a while so it can rebuild internal indexes.

This step is optional but can help if the issue is tied directly to a problematic Photos library.

5. Tame Photos, iCloud, and Spotlight so mediaanalysisd doesn’t loop

Continuous re-indexing is often caused by configuration rather than a one-time bug.

5.1 Review Photos and iCloud Photos settings

• Open Photos → Settings… (or Preferences… on older systems).
• On the General tab, confirm that the correct library is set as the System Photo Library. Mixed or relocated libraries can confuse background analysis.
• On the iCloud tab:
  • If CPU usage is extreme while iCloud Photos is syncing, temporarily disable iCloud Photos.
  • After the system settles, re-enable it and observe whether the spike returns.

5.2 Exclude noisy folders and drives from Spotlight

• Open System Settings → Siri & Spotlight.
• Scroll to the area that controls what Spotlight indexes (look for a Privacy or Search Results section, depending on macOS version).
• Click the + button and add:
  • external volumes with large, chaotic media collections;
  • folders that contain virtual machines, project archives, or build artifacts;
  • network shares you don’t need Spotlight to search.
• Restart your Mac and watch Activity Monitor.

If mediaanalysisd calms down after excluding specific paths, you’ve likely found the trigger.

5.3 Reduce Visual Look Up and Siri Suggestions (optional)

• Still in System Settings → Siri & Spotlight, review which apps and categories are allowed to use Siri suggestions and Spotlight.
• Turn off Siri suggestions in apps you never search through.
• In Photos, consider disabling features you rarely use that rely on always-on media intelligence.

This doesn’t fully disable mediaanalysisd but lowers the amount of work it has to perform.

6. Restart or temporarily pause mediaanalysisd

In some cases, simply restarting the daemon clears a temporary glitch.

6.1 Gently reset the process via Activity Monitor

• Open Activity Monitor and search for “media”.
• Select mediaanalysisd.
• Click the X button in the toolbar.
• Choose Quit. If the process doesn’t respond, choose Force Quit.

macOS will respawn mediaanalysisd automatically. If its behavior is normal afterward, the issue may have been a transient hang.

6.2 Advanced: temporarily disable mediaanalysisd with launchctl

This option is for advanced users only and should be treated as a temporary diagnostic step.

• Open Terminal from Applications → Utilities.
• Use a launchctl command to disable the relevant service temporarily (for example, targeting the media analysis daemon).
• Log out and log back in, or restart your Mac, to confirm that mediaanalysisd is no longer running.
• Re-enable the service once testing is complete.

Caution:

• Disabling mediaanalysisd means no new face recognition, object detection, or Live Text indexing while it’s off.
• Misusing launchctl can leave services in a broken state and may require reinstalling macOS to fix.
• Avoid disabling security features such as System Integrity Protection just to work around this issue.

For most users, clearing caches and adjusting settings is a safer and more sustainable path.

7. Rule out adware or PUA side-effects

mediaanalysisd itself is a legitimate Apple component, but malicious or unwanted software can create conditions where it works much harder than it should. Examples include:

• adware that constantly generates media or bogus files;
• browser extensions that flood your system with cached content;
• aggressive “optimizers” that repeatedly modify or duplicate your Photos libraries.

If you recently installed any suspicious apps, free “video downloaders”, or toolbars, remove them, restart your Mac, and see if the problem improves.

How to keep mediaanalysisd from misbehaving again

From a broader perspective, preventing a repeat comes down to system hygiene and realistic expectations.

• Keep macOS updated. Media and indexing subsystems evolve with each release, and bugs are often addressed quietly in minor updates.
• Let major tasks finish. After a big library import, iCloud Photos resync, or system upgrade, leave your Mac plugged in and awake so analysis can complete instead of constantly restarting.
• Avoid cluttered, moving targets. Don’t keep huge, messy media collections on slow or flaky external drives that are constantly being connected and disconnected. If you must, exclude them from Spotlight.
• Check the cache occasionally. If you’re a heavy Photos or Visual Look Up user, it’s worth checking ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mediaanalysisd/Data/Library/Caches/ from time to time to ensure it isn’t growing without bounds.
• Don’t hack system protections. Removing system daemons, turning off SIP, or manually deleting items from protected locations tends to create more problems than it solves.

Handled this way, mediaanalysisd and mediaanalysisd-access should remain a background helper rather than a permanent guest at the top of your CPU chart.

The bottom line

mediaanalysisd is designed to stay in the background and quietly power Photos, Spotlight, and modern media features. When it starts dominating CPU and filling your drive with gigabytes of cache data, something has clearly gone wrong – but you don’t need to tear macOS apart to fix it.

By confirming that mediaanalysisd is the culprit, clearing the com.apple.mediaanalysisd caches, letting legitimate indexing complete, tuning Photos and Spotlight, and ruling out unwanted software, you can usually bring the daemon back under control. The same remedial steps almost always rein in mediaanalysisd-access as well. The result should be a cooler, quieter, and more responsive Mac, with your SSD freed from a runaway cache you never asked for.

FAQ

1. Is mediaanalysisd a virus?

2. What is mediaanalysisd-access on my Mac?

3. Is it safe to delete the com.apple.mediaanalysisd cache folder?

4. Can I permanently disable mediaanalysisd?

5. Why does mediaanalysisd come back after I force-quit it?