I was checking my activity monitor today on my M1 Mac Mini and noticed that the photolibraryd process is using a large amount of memory. Is there some reason this is using such a large amount of memory? I only have 136 photos and 21 videos in my photos library, so I am very confused as to why this is happening or what Photos is doing to cause such usage. I am currently on Mac OS Sonoma 14.1.
Mac mini (M1, 2020)
I ended up getting in touch with apple support to diagnose the issue. I had to end up creating a new user account on my mac mini, as the issue didn’t arise when I created a test account. From there, I restored from a time machine backup and the issue hasn’t recurred since. It’s not an ideal solution, but if you create a test account and the photolibraryd process doesn’t behave the same way on the test account, then I would create a new user account and restore. You can delete the old account from there.
I ended up getting in touch with apple support to diagnose the issue. I had to end up creating a new user account on my mac mini, as the issue didn’t arise when I created a test account. From there, I restored from a time machine backup and the issue hasn’t recurred since. It’s not an ideal solution, but if you create a test account and the photolibraryd process doesn’t behave the same way on the test account, then I would create a new user account and restore. You can delete the old account from there.
Are there any updates on fixing this problem? Creating a new user and moving everything over to a new account isn't an option for me. It is consistently happening after the latest update on an imac (2021 M1 chip, 16GB RAM). Running Sonoma 14.1.2. I can delete the photolibraryd process in activity monitor, which solves the problem but only for an hour or so. If I use any memory intensive apps at all, it runs out of memory. I should be able to run Photoshop on a newish imac without having to troubleshoot memory problems constantly. I had a much older imac that never ran out of RAM like this. If there is another fix, please post here. Attached is screenshot of photolibraryd process taking up 35GB RAM on a machine with 16GB.
To be clear, this is just creating a new user account on the mac, not a new apple id. You can use your normal apple id on the new user account and restore your computer from a backup on the new user account.
Update: The system keeps recreating the photo library (in the trash no less, and without me opening Photos) and the photolibraryd process keeps coming back with the previous behavior. Anyone else have thoughts on whether this is something that needs to be fixed and if so, how?
Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?
Download and run Etrecheck. Be sure to give it Full Disk access before running.
Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.
Copy the report
and use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.
Then we can evaluate the report to see if we can determine the cause of the problem.
Update, update: This behavior is continuing and I am more frequently getting out of memory error messages, but by the time I check the Activity monitor, everything is back in the green. Finally caught the memory going from yellow into the red because of the photolibraryd process, right before it turns itself off. last image is of the process turning itself off and then back on within about 30 seconds.
That process is Photos searching every photo and every frame of every video for faces, objects like cars, dogs, cats, tables, etc. It often takes quite a while to complete the initial search and then whoever new photos are added to the library they get searched.
This is snapshot of my largest library (55,500) items. They key item in this screenshot is the Memory Pressure graph. As long as it is in the green all is well.
Same here, over 40GB of memory use on a 16 GB M1 with Sonoma 14.1.2 Recently getting out of application error messages. Never happened before. The only thing recently different (and I can't recall if the out of app memory errors preceded this) was creating a new standard user account in case my partner needed laptop access while we travel. While I was writing this the processed stopped, now it's humming again at about 32 GB of memory use and rising. Not good for those of us who use memory intensive apps for work.
This was happening to me as well. I twice received a "running out of application memory" warning that opens the force quit dialogue. The first time, I just restarted. The second time I opened up the Activity monitor. The photolibraryd process seems to be the only thing using an inordinate amount of memory. It would start up and ramp up to 40+ GB of memory (while nothing else is using more than 1GB) and using around 100% of a CPU. It would run for several minutes and then turn off abruptly, only to start up again a while later (sometimes just a few minutes later). I updated to the latest OS version, now on Sonoma 14.1.1. One of the first things that showed up after restart was photolibraryd with the same behavior. As with the person above. I don't use photos. There were maybe 10 photos in the photo library. I sent the photo library to the trash and the "moving to trash" dialogue kept spinning until the photolibraryd process ran its course and then the file went to the trash. The process did not seem to start up again after waiting several minutes. I then reopened Photos and had to create a new library (though with no pictures in it) and again the process did not start back up over several minutes. I added a picture to the library and didn't see the process, then I restarted the computer and the process started back up a minute or 2 after startup. I trashed the photo library again (and emptied the trash) and restarted. Restarting causes the system to create a new photo library (but still in the trash bin), but so far, I have not seen the photolibraryd process start up again.
Thank you. I've created a test account and don't see the same behavior. Yes, this will be a pain, but I probably haven't started from scratch on a computer through 3 or 4 laptops. So, who knows what old stuff might be mucking things up.
Yes, that is the issue. My memory pressure wasn't staying in the green. It was very much in the yellow and repeatedly briefly kicking into the red. I followed the advice about creating a new user and so far the process either isn't appearing or at least isn't pegging the memory usage as it does on the other account. One big caveat however, I haven't yet moved over my photos to the new account. But I was having the problem on the other account even when I had completely deleted my photos library. So, I think there was something wrong rather than it was a normally operating process.
Photolibraryd process using large amounts of memory
