What are mediaanalysisd and photoanalysisd on Mac?

What mediaanalysisd and photoanalysisd do

Apple's support articles never mention either process by name, so it's worth being clear about what is documented:

• photoanalysisd has a manual page in macOS (man photoanalysisd). It calls it "the photo library analysis agent" and says it handles background processing of photo libraries for Memories, People, and scene or object based search.
• mediaanalysisd has no manual page and no Apple article. On macOS 27.0.1 it's part of a private system framework called MediaAnalysis, and it runs in your own user account, not as a system service. Its name and location are as far as the public record goes.

What Apple does document is the work itself. Its Photos privacy notice says Photos uses on-device machine learning for features such as Memories, the People & Pets album, Featured Photos and Sharing Suggestions, and that the analysis includes scene classification, identifying people and pets, judging photo quality and classifying audio (Apple, Photos & Privacy). That's the kind of work these two processes do in the background, and it's why search in Photos can find "beach" or "dog" without you tagging anything.

When they run

They have nothing to do until something in your library is new or needs a fresh look, so you'll see them near the top of Activity Monitor:

• after a macOS update;
• after importing a lot of photos or videos;
• after turning on iCloud Photos on a Mac, as your library arrives;
• after moving to a new Mac.

On a Mac, Apple says Photos analyzes "as long as you aren't using the app" (Apple, People & Pets in Photos). The scheduling settings for mediaanalysisd on macOS 27.0.1 point the same way: its regular background task is set to maintenance priority and to wait until you're not using the Mac. Those are internal settings Apple doesn't document, and they can change between versions, but they explain why the work tends to happen when you step away.

How long it takes, and how to let it finish

For pet detection, Apple says the process "could happen quickly or take up to a few days to complete", depending on background tasks and the size of your library (Apple). A bigger library means more to get through.

To help it along:

1. Quit Photos when you're not using it, since Apple says the Mac analyzes while you aren't using the app.
2. Leave the Mac on, awake and plugged in for a few hours when you don't need it, such as over an evening. On battery, the work costs charge you might want later.
3. Check back in Activity Monitor. When photoanalysisd and mediaanalysisd drop to near zero and stay there, the backlog is done.

Apple documents an "only while locked and charging" rule for iPhone and iPad, but not for the Mac, so a Mac can do some of this work on battery too.

Does it send my photos anywhere?

According to Apple, no. Its privacy notice describes this analysis as on-device and says Apple doesn't access your photos or videos. If you use iCloud Photos, your library is stored in iCloud, which is a separate choice.

One feature does contact Apple's servers: Enhanced Visual Search, which finds landmarks and points of interest in your photos. Apple says it works "without sending your photos or videos to Apple": the Mac sends an encrypted mathematical representation of part of an image, protected with homomorphic encryption, differential privacy and a relay that hides your IP address (Apple, About Enhanced Visual Search in Photos). To turn it off, open Photos and choose Photos › Settings › General, then deselect Enhanced Visual Search. That changes landmark search only; the on-device analysis continues.

When it never seems to finish

• The Mac never gets idle time. If it's always in use or always asleep, the work keeps getting postponed. Give it a few hours awake and unused.
• The library is on an external drive. Photos can only analyze a library it can open, so keep the drive connected and awake while the Mac catches up.
• A recent macOS update. After macOS 26.5, several sites reported mediaanalysisd using a lot of CPU for long periods (for example MacTrast, June 2026). Apple made no statement. The common advice was to leave the Mac plugged in overnight so it could finish.
• It's something else. If photos aren't the issue, Spotlight indexing has its own processes after an update; see What is mds_stores?

Can you turn it off?

Honestly, no. Apple offers no setting to switch off on-device photo analysis on a Mac. Force quitting the processes in Activity Monitor only pauses them: macOS starts them again, and the backlog is still waiting. Guides that disable them with Terminal commands are working against macOS, and the cost is features that quietly stop working: People & Pets, Memories and searching your photos by what's in them.

The practical choice is when it happens, not whether. Let it run while you're away, plugged in, and it stays out of your way. If your Mac is slow for other reasons, Why is my Mac so slow? has the full checklist.

How Tend helps

Tend keeps per-app energy history (24 hours free, 30 days with Pro), including background processes like these, so you can see the analysis rise after an update and tail off over the following days instead of guessing whether it's stuck.

Questions

Related guides

Sources

• Apple, Photos & Privacy
• Apple, If you can't find pets in the People & Pets album in Photos (18 March 2025)
• Apple, About Enhanced Visual Search in Photos
• macOS 27.0.1, man photoanalysisd
• MacTrast, reports of mediaanalysisd high CPU on macOS 26.5 (3 June 2026, third party)

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