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Codex Desktop causes high CPU usage and overheating on Apple Silicon Mac #29374
Description
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
26.614.11602
What subscription do you have?
ChatGPT Plus
What platform is your computer?
Darwin 25.5.0 arm64 arm
What issue are you seeing?
After launching Codex Desktop, CPU usage becomes abnormally high and the Mac starts heating up quickly. When I quit Codex, CPU usage returns to normal. This makes the desktop app difficult to use on my Apple Silicon M5 Mac.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
- Use an Apple Silicon Mac with M5 chip running macOS 26.5.1.
- Install or update Codex Desktop to the latest available version.
- Launch Codex Desktop.
- Open Activity Monitor and sort by CPU usage.
- Wait for a short period of time after Codex starts.
- Observe that Codex-related processes show abnormally high CPU usage.
- The Mac starts heating up noticeably.
- Quit Codex Desktop.
- CPU usage drops back to normal and the Mac cools down.
No specific code snippet is required to reproduce this issue. The problem happens simply by launching Codex Desktop.
What is the expected behavior?
Codex Desktop should launch and remain idle without sustained high CPU usage.
When no active task is running, CPU usage should stay low and the Mac should not heat up noticeably. Codex should not trigger abnormal background activity from Codex helper processes or macOS system processes.
Additional information
My device is an Apple Silicon Mac with M5 chip running macOS 26.5.1.
The issue appears to be directly related to Codex Desktop because quitting Codex makes CPU usage return to normal.
I have already tried:
- Restarting the Mac
- Quitting and reopening Codex
- Reinstalling Codex Desktop
- Updating to the latest available version
- Running:
sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Codex.app
The issue still happens after these steps.
This may be related to Apple Silicon / M5, macOS 26.5.1, app signing or notarization, syspolicyd, file scanning, or background indexing.
Activity
github-actions commentedon Jun 22, 2026
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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BeastHome commentedon Jun 22, 2026
Seeing similar on my Intel Windows laptop. Start Codex and shortly afterwards the fan ramps up, even with no chats open in the current projects. Close it and it slows back down.
Version 26.616.51431 • Released Jun 20, 2026
jamguoxiaoqi commentedon Jun 24, 2026
I encountered this syspolicyd problem yesterday on a very fresh version:
Version 26.616.71553 • Released Jun 23, 2026
I tried many ways I can find in all comments from all issues I can found but no one works.
Until I found a stray/corrupted .git folder under one of my codex working directory, which contains multiple repos (but it should not have its own .git).
I removed it and everything is fine now.
After open Codex App, syspolicyd will run at ~50% for only couple seconds, not infinitively 150% anymore.
computer use, browsers, etc. are all enabled.
Hope this helps.
wupengfei0904 commentedon Jun 24, 2026
Thanks for the tip.
I updated Codex to version 26.619, and the overheating issue has been fixed for me. syspolicyd no longer stays at high CPU usage after opening Codex — it only spikes briefly and then goes back to normal.
I didn’t need to remove any stray
.gitfolder, but this is useful to know in case the issue comes back.