Idleassetsd taking lot of memory and cpu

Set wallpapers and screensavers to static images - seems to have stopped the data bleed for me. After upgrading to Sequoia last week also had excessive data usage. Yesterday my MacBook used 700GB. After restarting my MacBook this morning, within 10 minutes it was up to 60GB. My overage cost is going to be capped at $100 this month.

Apple, what is going on with idleassetsd? Why does it download so much data continuously?

Some AI generated text from a Google search on what idleassetsd does.

On macOS, idleassetsd is a background process responsible for managing and downloading assets like wallpapers, especially live wallpapers and screen savers, and can sometimes cause high CPU usage or bandwidth consumption. 

Here's a more detailed explanation:

• Purpose:
• idleassetsd is a daemon (a background process) that handles the downloading and caching of assets, including wallpapers, screen savers, and other system resources. 
• Functionality:
• It's designed to work in the background, ensuring that your Mac has the necessary assets readily available for display, especially when using dynamic wallpapers or screen savers. 
• Potential Issues:
• While typically a low-profile process, idleassetsd can sometimes become problematic, leading to:
  • High CPU usage: It can consume a significant amount of CPU power, especially if it's trying to download or manage assets. 
  • High bandwidth consumption: It can also use a lot of internet bandwidth when downloading assets. 
  • Disk space issues: It can write large amounts of data to your Mac's disk, potentially leading to full drives. 
• Troubleshooting:
• If you encounter issues with idleassetsd, you might need to:
  • Check for updates: Ensure your macOS is up to date, as Apple may have addressed related bugs in later versions. 
  • Monitor Activity Monitor: Use Activity Monitor to track CPU and network usage by idleassetsd to identify if it's the source of the problem. 
  • Restart the process: Sometimes, restarting the process can resolve temporary issues. 
  • Disable screensavers: If the issue is related to screen savers, disabling them might help. 
  • Contact Apple Support: If the problem persists, reach out to Apple Support for assistance. 

So it seems one of the easiest things to do is to stop using Apple's animated wallpapers and screensavers.

May I suggest in friendly terms

Re- read the Full Disclosure about this process from my respected contributor @ Kurt Lang

Posting from March 18, 2025

It was addressed to you was it not " Mar 18, 2025 12:02 PM in response to vivek-2567 "

I will go out on a " hunch " = " guess " this issue is more so about Data Usage over the Internet and used by the computer.

If I am totally wrong about this, I do apologize but this issue looks too familiar

Have seen at least 2 - 3 others who's internet connection from their ISP that have a small Data Cap

Data Cap meaning they can use the internet but can Only use xx GBs per month.

Going over that CAP and they have to Pay Extra to their ISP or worse still have to wait for the Next Monhs CAP to start anew

The same individuals mentioned earlier, discovered a Third Party Two Way Firewall and Blocking " idleassetsd " would help reduce the Data Usages

It will do that, at the expense of reduced functionality of the computer as a whole

This specific process is a Normal Process that is built into the Operating System

This computer has been connected to the Internet for about 90 minutes and yes this process has used 2.70 GB of Data

Had similar issue where idleassetsd takes up more and more disk storage (specifically in terms of swap space) and had to manually kill the process. Problem went away with a new 16 GB laptop, which kind of makes sense with double the memory.

In my former situation (with MBA M3 8 GB RAM, 500 GB storage), there was no obvious or noticeable performance degradation and memory pressure was consistently green (as idleassetsd ran in the background slowly increased to 1-2 GB memory and swap used).

👍