How do I fix high bird usage?

1. Check progress in Finder's iCloud Drive sidebar (look for the progress circle) 2. Leave the Mac on, plugged in and connected so it can finish 3. Avoid keeping huge, constantly changing files (like VMs or databases) in iCloud Drive 4. Restart your Mac if it seems stuck

What is bird on Mac?

Q: Is it safe to quit bird?

Quit with care. macOS relaunches it; iCloud Drive syncing pauses and resumes.

By Junaid, maker of Taskglass · Last reviewed November 5, 2026

Syncs iCloud Drive (including Desktop and Documents if enabled) with iCloud.

bird is one of the daemons behind iCloud Drive. It keeps your iCloud Drive files, and your Desktop and Documents folders if you turned that on, in sync with iCloud. It's busy when lots of files are being uploaded or downloaded, which can take a while after setup or big changes.

Category: Apple service
Made by: Apple
Safe to quit:: With care

Shown in Activity Monitor as bird

Why is bird using so much CPU or memory?

Uploading or downloading many or large files to iCloud Drive
First sync after enabling iCloud Drive or Desktop & Documents
Optimised storage removing or re-downloading files
Sync errors causing retries

What to do

1Check progress in Finder's iCloud Drive sidebar (look for the progress circle)
2Leave the Mac on, plugged in and connected so it can finish
3Avoid keeping huge, constantly changing files (like VMs or databases) in iCloud Drive
4Restart your Mac if it seems stuck

Safe to quit? With care.

macOS relaunches it; iCloud Drive syncing pauses and resumes.

Typical usage

Rough ranges on Apple Silicon Macs. Yours will vary.

CPU: Near 0% when idle; higher while syncing
Memory: 20–200 MB

Related guides

What's draining my MacBook battery?

Related processes

Part of the Taskglass Process Library