Mouse keeps freezing and Spotlight is constantly using high CPU

For about a month, my mouse pointer has been randomly freezing every 2 to 6 seconds, sometimes for hours at a time. When this happens, typing will also occasionally stop appearing for a few seconds, then all the characters I've typed show up at once. I also get occasional beachballs and apps that stop responding.

I've noticed that corespotlightd is almost always near the top of Activity Monitor, often using 150 to 200% CPU (I've seen it reach 219%). I've also seen kernel_task around 90 to 100%, along with other Spotlight processes using a lot of CPU.

Whenever I've noticed the mouse freezing, these processes have been running high, although high CPU usage doesn't always mean the mouse will freeze.

I've tried restarting, Safe Mode, rebuilding the Spotlight index, turning Spotlight off, and closing other apps, but nothing has fixed it. It actually stopped for about two days last week, then started right back up.

I've attached my EtreCheck report and Activity Monitor screenshots. EtreCheck was running when I took the screenshots, but I only installed it today, and these issues have been happening for weeks.

Does anyone have an idea why Spotlight keeps working so hard or what else I should check? It's getting impossible to get anything done.

EntreCheck Report

Posted on Oct 30, 2026 4:44 PM

1 reply

D.I. Johnson

Level 8 (45,031 points)

Oct 30, 2026 4:48 PM in response to The Tree Dr

You might take a look at another Community thread on the subject.

This issue has bedeviled some users for over quite some time.

Continued corespotlightd process CPU over… - Apple Community

That thread has lead many to the conclusion that the problem is related to a Spotlight issues with Pages and iCloud syncing.

I've experienced that problem and the fix for me was this:

• Delete the /Users/myusername/Library/Metadata/Corespotlight folder. It may grew overlarge (90 GB) in time. Spotlight will recreate the folder as needed.

It has also been suggested that upgrading the Pages app to the current version, 15.3, will also fix the problem.

The problem seems to have been corrected by Apple with their macOS 26.6 update, so keep your OS updated.