Coreaudiod on Mac: What is It? Fix Coreaudiod High CPU or Memory Usage

Everything you do on your Mac is supported by processes running in the background. These processes are usually hidden and only visible in Activity Monitor. While you don't need to understand them most of the time, sometimes, when your Mac is slow and makes loud fan noises, you'll want to check Activity Monitor and find out which process is at fault.

If the process is coreaudiod, this article has the answer you need. We'll elaborate on the purpose of coreaudiod and the steps to prevent it from using high CPU or memory usage on Mac.

What is coreaudiod on Mac?

According to the General Commands Manual, Coreaudiod, shortened for core audio daemon, is a process used for Core Audio-related purposes and was introduced with Mac OS X Tiger. The Apple developer portal describes Core Audio as a digital audio infrastructure that "encompasses recording, editing, playback, compression and decompression, MIDI, signal processing, file stream parsing, and audio synthesis."

So, basically, coreaudiod handles all things around sound on your Mac for both built-in apps and third-party applications. Whenever you record with a microphone or listen to a speaker, coreaudiod is involved.

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How to fix coreaudiod high CPU or memory usage on Mac?

Normally, coreaudiod barely consumes any CPU or memory. However, if it uses high CPU or memory, you can fix it with the following solutions.

Restart coreaudiod

When coreaudiod spikes CPU usage on Mac, it's likely not working properly and having trouble dealing with certain requests. So, one solution is to restart coreaudiod, offering it a chance to start anew. To do this:

Quit the culprit app

Pay attention to audio apps on your Mac. If you notice coreaudiod starting to use high CPU after one or more apps are open, quit those apps. If those apps are not necessary, we recommend you uninstall them with the dedicated app uninstaller, CleanMyApp.

Such a tool helps you uninstall the app completely so that the issue won't happen again, which would otherwise be the case if you simply moved the app to the trash.

Restart to Safe Mode

Another useful fix to stop coreaudiod high CPU usage is to boot into Safe Mode and restart normally. This is a troubleshooting mode that isolates third-party applications, clears caches, and checks the internal hard drive for disk errors at booting. If the problem is caused by third-party software, it won't occur in Safe Mode.

Clean reinstall macOS

If nothing works, reinstalling macOS is the final resort. You can boot into macOS Recovery, then choose "Reinstall macOS" and follow the instructions to reinstall macOS. This won't affect your data but will only replace the system files with new ones. Suppose coreaudiod continues to consume high CPU; consider backing up your Mac and erasing the startup disk to do a clean install.

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