Photos Version 5.0 (141.19.150): How to track which media files photoanalysisd is processing?

There's no way to tell which photos have been processed and which have not. It's cataloging faces, objects in the photo, i.e. chairs, dogs, tables, cars, etc. It'll do its thing in the background until complete. If you have a lot of videos that will take longer because it checks each frame of each video.

At night keeps your Mac on but not sleeping so Photos can continue to work thru the night.

I see Apple recommended this post. I am hoping someone at Apple will see this comment, and do something to finally fix this years-old issue spanning numerous MacOS versions that countless people have complained about, though I wouldn’t bet on it.

I can see what these CPU hogs photoanalysisd and mediaanalysisd, for example, are supposed to do. Seems like a handy feature they are supporting. However, it is completely unacceptable for them to run autonomously without user control over when and/or whether they run. The features they support are not essential, but countless people’s computers become virtually unusable because of them running. This prevents people from being able to perform essential work on their Macs, for example, taking computer-based college exams, making and giving critical presentations to various audiences, running live audio/video processing for live stage performances, etc. The owner/user of the computer should be able to easily control what nonessential processes run, when they run, and at what priority level.

The reason I think Apple hasn’t addressed this issue is to attempt to make people upgrade their Macs to the latest models with faster processors, more memory, etc., that aren’t as crippled by these CPU-hogging background processes (for now).

Fortunately, there are non-Apple-controlled forums for Mac users where people can find answers to killing these nonessential processes and preventing them from spontaneously starting up and grinding their systems to a halt. Not the best solution, but it is what it is.

Thank you for the link for providing product feedback. I did send some feedback. I didn't intend to hijack the thread, but it would be helpful if Apple supported users being able to schedule these background processes to run, the way most anti-virus programs permit scheduling of virus scans, to address the OP's issues, as well as similar issues that I've seen countless others have had.

It would also be useful to be able to see which photos have been processed and which have not, which the OP wished to do.

I imagine most people don't even know these processes are running because they either have newer Macs whose performance isn't as impacted by these processes, or they don't have 50,000+ photos and/or thousands of videos in their libraries.

Perhaps my library has grown beyond Photo's intended or supported size. Perhaps I need to find a more capable photo software package. It has been convenient to use Photo, however, since I use both my full-frame digital SLR and my iPhone 11 Pro Max for photography and videography, as well as several different Macs (iMac 21.5" late 2012, and Macbook Pro 13" late 2012) in addition to my iPhone for photo and video editing. Overall, I have been impressed with how well my Macs have performed for so long. Windows machines that I've used would typically only last me a year or two before I had to replace them.

Most people don't even know it is running.

By all means, send feedback to Apple:

Product Feedback - Apple