WebThumbnailExtension consuming all CPU capacity. Possibly due to outlook?

ftwzwerg wrote:

Hi

I just recently bought a macbook for the first time. But there's one really annoying issue I'm running into that kinda has me on the verge of returning it.

I noticed at some point that my Macbook had a dozen of these "WebThumbnailExtension" processes running which caused it to slow down to a point where even just opening a window will take several seconds. These processes will not disappear, even if I leave it running for half an hour. The only fix is restarting.

I tried to figure out what was causing the issue, when I noticed that it always seemed to begin once I started searching with spotlight.

I then reset the mac to factory settings and reconfigured everything, except for outlook. And the problem disappeared. After doing this again and installing outlook again it came back.

I do not have "Outlook"....

and have never seen the issue:

for your third party app—if in doubt search the developers website or contact their: Support/Help/FAQ/Known issues/compatibility/updates…

Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Support

Contact a third-party vendor - Apple Support

Microsoft Corporation/Customer service

1 (800) 642-7676

Microsoft support

https://support.microsoft.com

Ask the Microsoft Community

https://answers.microsoft.com/

¿what is the date of your most recent backup, and by what method?

if you are convinced this is a spotlight issue, please contact Apple support. The responses there may be similar "we don't fix third-party software, and Outlook is not an Apple product. and we don't see these sorts of issues when outlook is not installed."

Official Apple Support

<< I then reset the mac to factory settings and reconfigured everything, except for outlook. And the problem disappeared. After doing this again and installing outlook again it came back.

I think there is some kind of issue with spotlight indexing all the years of emails, pdfs, excel files and other attachments that outlook will download to the machine. >>

Are you reading what you are writing?

It's not spotlight. It's Outlook.

It's the holidays, so things are a little slow. But not that slow. Its been more than three days since your original post, and no one here has added any great insights about what inside MacOS might be doing that to you.

The links to contact microsoft support to inquire about Outlook on Mac were kindly provided above by Leroy Douglas.