If your Mac feels a bit sluggish, open the Activity Monitor to check what’s eating up your computer resources. The Bird process may sometimes be the culprit. Let’s explore how you can quickly fix this issue.
Bird is the back-end process behind iCloud. It’s one of the system daemons that macOS uses to back up your Documents to iCloud. If the process is actively running in the background, this indicates iCloud is syncing your files.
However, if Bird is causing high CPU usage, this means iCloud is trying to sync corrupted files and your Mac is literally choking on them.
Third-party extensions, as well as unwanted programs, such as malware and crypto-miners, can force Bird to push the CPU to the max. If you don’t solve the problem quickly, this results in your Mac continually running hot.
Fix: Bird Process Uses 100% of CPU
Identify and Delete the Problematic Files
Check what files are causing Bird to use too much CPU power. There are two Terminal commands that you can run to see what Bird is doing: brctl log –wait –shorten or brctl log -w –shorten.
If you’re running macOS Catalina and newer, run the second command. If you’re running an older macOS version, use the first command.
Check the log and look for repeating errors to identify the problematic files. Once you’ve identified those files, delete them from your computer. If they contain important data, copy them to your desktop, and delete the original files.
If you can’t find anything in the log files or find the problematic files locally, this may indicate the Bird process is choking on temporary files. In this case, you need to delete the entire folder, not just individual files. Don’t forget to create a copy of that folder locally before you delete it.
Force-Quit Bird
Click on the Apple icon and select Force Quit. Then select iCloud and click on Force Quit. Alternatively, you can also close Bird and iCloud from Activity Monitor. Simply select the two processes in the Activity Monitor window and click Stop.
Then temporarily disable iCloud to prevent Bird from syncing your files again. Go to System Preferences, and select your Apple ID. Then click on iCloud and untick iCloud Drive.
The OS will bring Bird back shortly. Check if the process is still using too much CPU power.
⇒ Note: Some users confirmed they solved the problem after clearing the Desktop and Documents folders and disabling iCloud sync. Combine these two methods and check the results.
Reset iCloud
First, disable iCloud as shown above. Then navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/iCloud/Accounts/.
Copy all the files available in your iCloud account to a different location (your desktop or an external storage device). Delete all the folders from your iCloud account, and check if the issue persists.
Additional Solutions
If Bird is still causing high CPU usage, create a new user account and reset SMC/NVRAM. Check for corrupted keychains of iCloud in the Keychain Manager. Navigate to Keychain Access and see if you find any corrupted iCloud keys. They appear in red. Delete them and check the results.
Conclusion
If Bird is using 100% of CPU on your Mac, check what files are causing the process to use too much CPU power and delete them. Then force-quit Bird and disable iCloud. If the issue persists, reset iCloud, create a new user account and reset SMC/NVRAM. Go to Keychain Access and delete any corrupted iCloud keys.
Did you manage to solve the problem? Which of the solutions above worked for you? Let us know in the comments below.
Madalina has been a Windows fan ever since she got her hands on her first Windows XP computer. She is interested in all things technology, especially emerging technologies — AI and DNA computing in particular.
On MacOS Monterey, using the commands listed above: brctl log -w –shorten
simply returns a list of arguments you COULD use. It seems there’s an error or something missing in the command line.
Therefore, I was not able to get a list of the files which may be giving the issue, corrupted or otherwise.
using ventura, newest 13.6.x, neither of those terminal commands produces any results output in my terminal at all. nothing.
bird process has gone into major cpu usage since the most recent updates as far as i can tell. more apple bugs for ventura especially.
force qutting bird does nothing either, it restarts. i don’t have room for icloud to start downloading to my small SSD drive. that’s why i use icloud.
hating apple more every passing year and i been on apple since the 80s.
Hello,
Thank you for this article. It helped me a lot. In my case it was enough to disable and enable iCloud sync.
Have a nice day!
On MacOS Monterey, using the commands listed above: brctl log -w –shorten
simply returns a list of arguments you COULD use. It seems there’s an error or something missing in the command line.
Therefore, I was not able to get a list of the files which may be giving the issue, corrupted or otherwise.
Same with me. Instructions are missing something. Please explain to me like I’m 5!
Force quitting bird only made it start up again.
I forced quit the bird from activity monitor and all of a sudden my storage got freed. This articles helped! Thanks!