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Last active July 25, 2020 11:01
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When "com.apple.IconServicesAgent" exhausts CPU resources on Mac OSX mavericks (10.9), you can try following workaround.
#!/bin/sh
mkdir ${TMPDIR}/com.apple.IconServices
@torgeir
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torgeir commented Sep 23, 2014

mkdir ${TMPDIR}/com.apple.IconServices worked for me. Dunno if it's just temporary, though

@smugsnug
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this what i got - after 12 hours of

sudo fs_usage -f pathname -w com.apple.IconServicesAgent | grep open

[0x211] flags: 0x8 binding: FileInfoBinding [0x647] - extension: jpg, UTI: public.jpeg, fileType: ????.

@kopurando
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In my particular case, following did NOT help:

killall -KILL com.apple.IconServicesAgent

mkdir -p ${TMPDIR}/com.apple.IconServices

However, I was watching its behaviour via

sudo fs_usage -f pathname -w com.apple.IconServicesAgent | grep open

and saw extensive activity in various dirs (including VLC dir, and inside some system services dirs, like /System/Library/Extensions/IOStorageFamily.kext/Contents/Resources). I could reinstall VLC, but IOStorageFamily is sort of built in...

Anyway, after a bit deeper research, the culprit turned out to be XtraFinder! I restarted and updated XtraFinder, and so far IconServicesAgent has been quiet.

@NeoSalteador
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The first sorry for my English. I am Spanish and I try to write so that you understand me.
I have the problem you described long ago about iconservicesagent, a process that triggers to consume RAM when I open an external hard drive.
I have been communicating with apple technicians but I have seen that all they did was experiment with my computer without knowing exactly what they were doing or why.
Finally, I told them that what I wanted was for them to look for the global error and make a patch, because it was evident (it was only necessary to search Google for "iconservicesagent" to see that many more people were the same), it's a big problem.

I do not know if you have continued investigating about that problem, but I would like to know if you have any progress because I can not work with that external hard drive and from Apple they do not find the solution.
Thank you very much for your time. Regards

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