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Something annoying has crept into the lives of some Mac owners: a sudden sluggishness after installing macOS 26.5. Fans spin for a long time. Battery life dips. The machine feels less snappy. Users began comparing notes and the pattern pointed to a common culprit—background image processing tied to Apple's new intelligence features.
Investigations by outlets like 9to5Mac found a process called mediaanalysisd chewing through CPU cycles on affected machines. On some Macs, the process — along with kernel_task and corespotlightd — reportedly pushed CPU usage well above 100 percent, leaving everyday apps starved for resources. The name gives it away: mediaanalysisd is tied to analyzing your photo library, and the timing suggests Apple’s on-device image-scanning for Apple Intelligence is running after the update.
Why would macOS do that? Think of it as a one-time indexing sprint. New features that rely on recognizing people, scenes, or objects need metadata. The system generates that metadata by scanning images and building local indexes. It’s useful later — searches get faster, suggestions become smarter — but the immediate cost can be heavy resource use while the work completes.
There isn’t a guaranteed fix from Apple yet. Reports from users indicate a reliable workaround: plug the Mac into power and let it idle for a few hours, or overnight. Many say the intensive CPU activity subsided once the scan finished and normal responsiveness returned. That suggests the activity is transient, not an endless loop.
If your Mac slowed after updating to macOS 26.5, plug it into power and leave it to finish its image scan.
Apple has not issued an official comment on these reports. For anyone worried about battery drain or short-term performance loss, keeping your Mac connected and allowing it to complete background indexing appears to be the simplest path back to normal. And if the behavior persists beyond a day or two, it’s worth checking Activity Monitor for mediaanalysisd and related processes, and contacting Apple Support if they don’t taper off.
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