com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent CPU CPU Usage

Question

Created Jun ’19

Replies 30

Boosts 1

Views 20k

Participants 29

Under Catalina Beta2 I am noticing that the process com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent CPU is consistently consuming between 70% - 90% on my MacBook Pro 2016. I've tried killing the process but it restarts and goes back to consuming the same excessive amount of CPU. Any ideas on how to get this to stop are most appreciated.

Regards,

Rob

Boost

Answer 1

Gajuro OP

Oct ’19

I have the same issue with Catalina. Any solutions found?

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Answer 2

andyFuchs OP

Mar ’20

same thing still in 10.15.3 (19D76)... these OSX background-services come into our way more and more... seems overall quality is degrading 😟

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Answer 3

Prentice3 OP

Jun ’20

I have experienced the same thing. In my case, it has been associated with FINDER, and I have resolved the problem by doing the following: Click the APPLE in the upper-left corner of your screen....Select FORCE QUIT....Select FINDER....You will be given the opportunity to RELAUNCH - Click that. It will kill and restart Finder without the Thumbnails Agent running. It will flare up again every couple of weeks, so just complete this procedure as required.

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Answer 4

LorenzoWidmann OP

Nov ’20

I have the same issue with Big Sur. I tried to reinstall macOS and clean the cache, but nothing happened.

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Answer 5

OndrejPodol OP

Dec ’20

Same here - Big Sur, MacBook Pro 16 2019, i9 2.3GHz, 16GB RAM.

2

Answer 6

BaselDarvish OP

Dec ’20

Same issue

Code Block BigSur version 11.1 (20C69)
MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9

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Answer 7

mwhardesty OP

Dec ’20

Same problem here.

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Answer 8

Patric-xujl OP

Dec ’20

i have the same issue .Does it work to reinstall the system ?

1

Answer 9

amandimal OP

Feb ’21

This seems to have worked for me to stop/disable the Quick Look cache. In the Terminal:

qlmanage -r cache [to stop the service and delete cached files]

qlmanage -r disablecache [to disable the cache altogether]

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Answer 10

renzocastagnino OP

Mar ’21

The same issue still persist in Big Sur version 11.2.3 (March 2021). My MacBook Pro keeps overheating when this process runs.

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Answer 11

drvs OP

Mar ’21

Same issue with MacBook Air 2020. Big Sur 11.2.3. Fan goes crazy.

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Answer 12

paul_hammant OP

Mar ’21

Still happening on 11.2.2. I manually killed the agent in ActivityMonitor, and the fan stopped screaming.

qlmanage -r disablecache doesn't work for me: qlmanage: invalid argument disablecache

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Answer 13

traqel OP

Mar ’21

In my case the reason was a huge file (170 Gb) on a disk. Once I have removed it - issue has been solved.

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Answer 14

drvs OP

Mar ’21

This is interesting to know. I dont have any such huge file. With me, its always when viewing PDFs in Preview app.

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Answer 15

BigMcGuire OP

Apr ’21

Big Sur 11.2.3 - still an issue. I wake up to com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent consuming 142.9% CPU - 170+% CPU. diskarbitrationd is always the next high CPU consumption app. This is slowing down the OS and making working throughout the day noticeably laggier than my older MBP.

Killing the ThumbnailsAgent only works temporarily as it always comes back. No amount of letting it sit there consuming high CPU resolves it either.

Restarting Finder does not work. There is no such command qlmanage -r disablecache - The -r cache doesn't do anything.

I'm getting ready to just wipe this MBP and start fresh because my work provided older MBP doesn't have this problem and it runs a lot faster than my 2020 MBP. What a shame.

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