com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent CPU CPU Usage

App & System Services Core OS
rsaccone OP
Created Jun ’19
Replies 30
Boosts 2
Views 22k
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

Replies  30
Boosts  2
Views  22k
Participants  29
Gajuro OP
Oct ’19

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

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.
LorenzoWidmann OP
Nov ’20
I have the same issue with Big Sur. I tried to reinstall macOS and clean the cache, but nothing happened.
OndrejPodol OP
Dec ’20
Same here - Big Sur, MacBook Pro 16 2019, i9 2.3GHz, 16GB RAM.
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
mwhardesty OP
Dec ’20
Same problem here.
Patric-xujl OP
Dec ’20
i have the same issue .Does it work to reinstall the system ?
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]
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.
drvs OP
Mar ’21
Same issue with MacBook Air 2020. Big Sur 11.2.3. Fan goes crazy.
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
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.
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.
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.
drvs OP
Apr ’21
Yes, this is an absolute shame that this is persistent since months and has not been addressed by Apple yet.

Please write here after wiping whether it works or not. If yes, then I will follow the same route.
BigMcGuire OP
Apr ’21
It looks like this did it - https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/79354

I just went to Settings --> Apple ID - and unchecked iCloud Drive - waited for that to process - then rechecked. Took 4 hours to download my 40+GB of iCloud data but after several restarts and using my MacBook like normal - no thumbnails agent. Also I'm noticing a vast improvement in OS speed having done this... I remember my Activity Monitor always being in the 20-40% after upgrading to Big Sur.

I'll report back if I see ThumbnailsAgent again but so far so good.
BigMcGuire OP
Apr ’21
And it's back. Came back several hours ago and has been chugging away ever since. Guess I will be reinstalling Mac OS from the grounds up.
drvs OP
Apr ’21
Thank you for writing. This is frustrating, spending hours and still getting the same problem. I have reported this to Apple support also that this problem is being faced by many users, but whether they are reporting it to the engineers is questionable.
Big_Dunn OP
Apr ’21
Catalina 10.15.5, Just close Finder window, and the issue is been solved
Hezretaly OP
Apr ’21
I think this is related to indexing for Finder app. When your resources are idle it automatically indexes all the files in your Mac. It happened twice to my MacBook Pro(15" 2018) when I upgraded to Big Sur and two months after that. But Apple engineers will know better than me(the details)

Update:
After closing recents window it stopped consuming so much power. I guess I was wrong.
drvs OP
Apr ’21
Its still persisting in Big Sur 11.3. CPU usage 150%.
Hoizaeme OP
Jun ’21

Still the same under BigSur 11.4. After closing the Finder window it disappears
emir82 OP
Jun ’21

Reporting from Big Sur 11.4:Same issue. I tried following in the terminal to kill the process % kill 15 com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent % kill <the_processid_for_com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent> % sudo killall com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent

But it kept running. Then I “force-killed" it from the Activity Monitor. No heat so far.
Aaanon OP
Jun ’21

The thumbnail.agent is an app that (I think) goes into a file, reads it, and displays its content in thumbnail form.

It runs within Finder, obviously.

This happened to me because I had a huge pdf on my finder, which thumbnail.agent continuously looked into and updates (quick fix would probably be if Apple devs made it run every 10secs not continuously), a more decent fix would be to generate a less accurate thumbnail so it uses less resources.

User Solution: The moment you switch to another window in Finder where there are no big files you’ll be fine.

I host my big pdfs online now and open them in my browser to prevent this from happening. If you had to have them saved locally you could save them zipped or something.

Hope this helps!

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