What is the 'cloudd' Process on Mac?

Mac users who have shown interest in what is going on behind the hood of their macOS might have noticed a process named 'cloudd.' Usually, cloudd runs in the background and takes up a minuscule portion of the system's resources. As some might have guessed from its name, the process (also known as a daemon) is related to Apple's CloudKit framework. More specifically, the process is triggered whenever an application or a process attempts to sync data to or from iCloud. What to do if the process shows some abnormal behavior? Check the solutions outlined below to address some common concerns regarding the cloudd process.

Needs Access to the Keychain

Access to your Keychain is needed to authorize access to iCloud. In nearly all circumstances, the process should perform this task in the background without any user input. However, if the is a problem with the user's keychain, cloudd might display a message stating 'Cloudd wants to use the login keychain' or 'Cloudd wants to use the local items keychain.' To fix the problem, you may need to recreate your keychain.

Takes Up an Abnormal Amount of Resources

Another issue could be that the process is suddenly spiking in terms of used resources. Some users report that the underlying cause could be a Virtual Machine (VM) such as Parallels Desktop. The default behavior of Parallels Desktop sees the program store its VM files in the Documents folder. With prolonged use, the data stored could also grow. At some point, cloudd might try to sync the data with iCloud leading to high usage of system resources. To prevent this outcome, set Parallels Desktop to use a different folder for its VM.

If you do not have a VM installed, but cloudd is still using a lot of resources, you can try restarting the Mac or using Force Quit to stop a frozen or crashing application that might be trying to sync with iCloud.