MacBook Air high CPU usage in Lightroom and just after - cloudd process

[Tim Woodward]

Hi guys - I have just installed Lightroom CC trial and I notice that I get huge CPU usage and overheating as soon as I touch something like the clone stamps or brushes - I also notice that even after I quit Lightroom 'cloudd' and 'bird' process are busy uploading stuff to iCloud - is this usual, looks like I'm going to have to turn off iCloud documents sync! It seems to be previews and catalogue files syncing?

MacBook Air 2014 - 1.4Ghz core i5 - 4Gb RAM

Cheers

Tim

[Mohit Goyal]

Hi TimWoodward,

Please turn off the graphics processor from the Lightroom preferences.

Open Lightroom > Edit menu > Preferences > Performance > Uncheck GPU > Restart

Let us know if that helps.

Regards,

Mohit

[Tim Woodward]

Hi Mohit - thanks a lot, that has certainly made using tools like the clone stamp so much faster, it was jumping about all over the place before! And I am sure this has reduced the system load whilst performing editing tasks. I am still getting fan noise as a result of the iCloud syncing however - I think i need to disable this although it says it will delete all my local files if I do (even though I have turned off optimisation for Documents sync) - oh Apple what moron thought that was a good idea!

[johnrellis]

I am still getting fan noise as a result of the iCloud syncing however

It's normal for the fans to run when LR is doing a lot of work: Learn about the fans in your Mac - Apple Support

[Tim Woodward · Accepted solution]

So two things sorted this:

1) Turn off graphics processor as above to minimise Lightroom hogging the CPU

2) As Apple won't let you turn off icloud syncing without deleting your files and making you download them to your Mac manually (?) I simply moved the three main Lightroom files (catalog, previews and smart previews) out of Lightroom folder within Documents into a folder in the root folder of the user and icloud won't try syncing them anymore.