What is avconferenced and why is it eating up your Mac's CPU?

Noticed avconferenced Mac high CPU in Activity Monitor? You might be wondering if that's what's making your fans roar or your laptop heat up? It’s actually a bit of an unfamiliar system process for many users, and because it’s tied to the camera, a lot of people think they’ve been hacked and that it means they’re being watched.

First up, it’s a normal Mac process, so don’t kill it just yet in Activity Monitor; that can actually cause you more issues. It just needs to be handled correctly, and I’ll show you how.

What is avconferenced?

avconferenced might look suspicious, but it’s a totally normal macOS process, related to the Audio Video Conference Daemon behind FaceTime, your camera app, and even mic access, plus Continuity Camera/Handoff.

If you’ve searched online for answers, you might have seen threads that it’s a virus, but It’s definitely not malware or some weird surveillance threat.

If you want to double-check your privacy setup, you can look for the camera indicator light or green dot, then open System Settings > Privacy & Security > Camera to see which apps have access. That’s actually quite important to check periodically, so if it’s been a while, this is a friendly reminder.

Why does it spike so high?

From what I’ve seen, the most common reason for AvConference high CPU usage on your Mac is down to a camera or conferencing app getting stuck in the background.

Anything from Zoom, Teams, and FaceTime, even browser video calls, or anything that recently asked for camera or mic access. Continuity Camera and Handoff can also glitch, keeping the process active.

But it’s also possible, in rarer cases, that it’s a macOS bug, memory leak, or corrupted cache or permissions that could be causing issues too.

The quick fixes below should help you quickly diagnose your specific issue and repair it.

Quick fixes for avconferenced Mac high CPU

1. Fully quit every camera app

You need to make sure you’ve properly shut every app down that has camera access. Go to your Mac’s main menu and in Force Quit, get everything, and don’t forget your browsers too.

Then, go and check in Activity Monitor; nothing else is running.

2. Toggle Continuity Camera off/on

Go to your System Settings > General > General > AirDrop & Continuity, then turn off Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices. Restart your Mac and try turning it back on.

3. Restart

Give your Mac another quick restart just to try and clear up any stuck camera sessions.

4. Keep an eye on CPU usage

To find the exact app that's keeping the daemon busy, you could also try CleanMyMac’s Menu App. It shows you your live CPU and memory usage directly in your menu bar and lets you quit the top consumer directly. You can test it for 7 days — get your free trial here.

If it keeps happening

If it doesn’t seem to be clearing up, then it’s time to dig a little deeper. First, make sure your Mac is updated with the latest available software in System Settings > General> Software Updates; this means you’ll have all the latest bug fixes for background processes.

If you can locate a specific app that seems to be causing the issue, I’d try resetting its conferencing app’s settings and even turning off and on HD video call features.

Review your camera and microphone permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security and revoke access for apps that don’t need it.

Don’t try to kill avconferenced in Activity Monitor; this is simply going to break or mess up any video and camera features.

Finally, I’d consider reinstalling macOS as a very last-resort repair.

Rule out malware & clear bad cache

If your camera does start to activate when you’ve got no apps or apps that use the camera open, or the spike persists after all fixes, it is wise to run your anti-virus software and rule out camera-hijacking malware and clear corrupted app cache.

You could also use the Protection feature from CleanMyMac; it can also scan for malware. And its Cleanup will clear corrupted app cache that may be causing the loop.