SOLVED Finder takes up over 100% CPU usage even after force restart

[bufonidae]

Finder keeps taking up lots of CPU usage and I can't figure out how to fix it.
If I click Finder, it does not open.
I've restarted my mac several times now, but when I reopen it, the issue still persists.
Relaunching doesn't work either. It either does nothing, or shows a window asking whether to reopen Finder's windows or not, but when I try to click it, my cursor turns into the spinning wheel and doesn't let me click anywhere on the window.
I use a Macbook Air on macOS Sonoma 14.0.

 

[Rodananne]

Sight unseen it's a little difficult to give a precise suggestion for your problem but it sounds like a memory issue. Wherever you get a spinning wheel on a Mac it usually indicates insufficient memory resources. This can be in the form of a lack of free (empty) storage space for "virtual" memory or a faulty RAM chip.

The most common cause is the "lack of free (empty) storage" generally advised to be about 20% of total HD storage especially on the newer Macs running SSD's, as compared to the old spinning disk HDD's which were a little more forgiving.
You may also have background apps running that can use a lot of system resources especially at startup.

My only advice would be to disconnect your network (turn off WiFi) and give the device time to complete whatever processes it's engaged in without doing anything, just let it run and quit any running applications if you can.
If it settles down after say 30min check the About this Mac menu under the Apple menu in the Menu Bar. Go to More Info and or Storage depending on the macOS you have then look at Free Storage levels. This can take a while to calculate if you are short on RAM or free storage so be patient.

Of course this may not be the problem but if it is it can be a bit of a "Catch 22" situation. It's difficult to create free space if you don't have any because the action of removing stored items requires free space.

If it turns out you have plenty of storage free we can look at other things that might be using up your CPU resources or in the worst case scenario how to reinstall macOS.

 

[bufonidae]

The issue appears to have gone away on its own, I'm not sure why
Thank you for the help though

 

[Rodananne]

No doubt it's now finished doing whatever it was struggling to do. I'm glad it has resolved itself. I would still check your free space in Storage. Just in case it happens again, you can rule that out.
There will be times of increased CPU activity such as immediately after a macOS upgrade but really what you described should never happen.
Some antivirus software is infamous for causing this type of problem as are some other apps that run constantly in the "background". This was why I suggested disconnecting WiFi.

 

[bufonidae]

It happened again, but it's fixed now. I had way too many screenshots that were automatically going to the Desktop folder, and I'm pretty sure that's why Finder was struggling so much.

 

[Rodananne]

If you put them in a folder instead that would solve that.