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Fix Routined Quit Unexpectedly on Mac or High CPU Issue

Updated on Friday, March 14, 2025

Written by

Jenny Zeng

Approved by

Jessica Shee

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Summary: This article from iBoysoft explains what routined is and how to fix routined quit unexpectedly on Mac, as well as how to stop it from using high CPU usage.

Routined usually runs in the background without catching any attention. If it does, it's likely due to the popup "routined quit unexpectedly," "routined wants to use the "Local Items" keychain," or routined eating a lot of CPU.

Here, we'll help you understand the routined process and fix the related issues.

What is routined on a Mac?

Routined is a background daemon responsible for learning the historical location patterns of a user, according to its man page. It helps determine user-specific location data, including frequent locations, travel patterns, and other data, to provide personalized features and improve system functionality.

Based on the collected data, routined can suggest routines, such as when to leave for appointments to avoid traffic, and be used by Maps, Siri, or Calendar for location-aware suggestions and reminders.

The routined process is located at /usr/libexec/routined. You can press Command-Shift-G and enter the file path to view it.

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How to fix routined quit unexpectedly on Mac?

Many users started to get the error message "routined quit unexpectedly" after a macOS update. It could be after the macOS Sequoia update, macOS Sonoma, macOS Ventura, or any other update. They noticed that routined keeps crashing on MacBook. Even if they dismiss the popup window, it will spawn again after a while.

If that also happens to you, use the solutions below to remove the message "routined quit unexpectedly" on Mac.

Sign out of iCloud account

  1. Open System Preferences/Settings.
  2. Click your Apple ID name.
  3. Scroll down and click "Sign Out."
  4. Wait for your account to be cleared.
  5. Log back into iCloud.

Clear caches

Another way to fix MacBook routined quit unexpectedly is to clean caches, which can efficiently remove corrupted caches.

  1. Open Finder.
  2. Press Command-Shift-G to open the "Go to Folder" dialog.
  3. Enter the following path and press Go.~/Library/Caches/
  4. Find and delete all cache files related to routined.

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How to fix routined high CPU usage on Mac?

Routined usually won't use many CPU resources, unless it's running a critical task. If the CPU spike of routined doesn't last long, you shouldn't worry about it. However, if it continues to cause a heavy CPU load for an extended time, you can try the following solutions:.

Delete the com.apple.routined.plist file

If routined is using high CPU usage on Mac, you can delete the file containing its settings and preferences: com.apple.routined.plist. This can revert the routined process to its default settings, resolving various issues. To do this:

  1. Open Finder.
  2. Tap Go > Go to Folder from the menu bar.
  3. Copy and paste the file path into the search bar: (the file may be stored in a different location on your Mac. Here are some possible locations:) 
    ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.routined/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.routined.plist 
    ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.routined.plist 
  4. Delete the com.apple.routined.plist file.
  5. Empty the Trash. 
  6. Restart your Mac.

Disable routined on Mac

Suppose routined keeps using a significant amount of CPU, then consider disabling routined on Mac.

  1. Open Terminal. 
  2. Type the command below and hit Enter.sudo mount -rw /
  3. Input your login password and hit Enter again. 
  4. Run another command to disable routined on Mac.sudo mv /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.routined.plist /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.routined.plist.disabled

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