How should we be closing or not closing accountsd using 400% CPU type questions on 10.15.6 and newer?

Question

We have a rash of people needing help with sluggish Macs on 10.15.6 and 10.15.7

The best technical explanation of this is that some, but not all people get this daemon taking multiple cores of CPU and not sorting itself out.

• https://mrmacintosh.com/catalina-10-15-7-update-accountsd-using-400-if-using-icloud-mail/

I don't want to just copy all of the details from that post, but I think the triage steps there are amazing, so I'll likely adapt it and give credit in one or two posts later this morning.

• old 10.10.3 Why is the accountsd process eating so much CPU?
• new 10.15.5 Suddenly the fan of my Mac Mini starts to run as crazy - Possible reason / elimination?
• new 10.15.? Why is accountsd using so much of my CPU? Conversely, why are my computer's fans overheating so quickly and often?
• new 10.1?.? accountsd process uses all CPU - AMSAccountStoreCache error
• new 10.1?.? A process called "accountsd" has over 200% of CPU usage - MacBook Air 2020
• new 10.15.6 Process in /System/Library/Frameworks/Accounts.framework/Versions/A/Support/accountsd taking almost all ressources (Catalina - MacOS 10.15.6)
• new 10.15.6 Process "accountsd" has over 500% CPU usage
• new 10.1?.? High CPU usage by accountsd

Now, for us - how should we be deciding on duplicate questions so that people that had issues in the past 10.10 and have answered a lot, get a good new answer. What strategy on linking / closing serves people needing an answer this week and next week?

Answer 1

My gut reaction is we should pick one of the new questions and update an answer and link to the old question since Apple clearly had a rash of this in late September where the daemon was triggered and other breakage happened.

Not everyone needs to reset NVRAM, but for some that works. Not everyone fixes it with a reboot, some do. Most can now just patch and presumably things will quiet down.

There's a fix from Apple now - I've added it to the top of this answer:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/394141/5472

• The fix for this on Mojave is to install the 10.14.6 Supplemental Update - build 18G6032
• The fix for this on Catalina is to install the macOS Catalina 10.15.7 Update - build 19H2

After the reboot - check for build versions and that no OS updates are available. You don't need to delete any accounts or keychains or internal database files if you can patch your Mac with the Apple fixes.

Here’s another short answer with the info: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/402553/5472