Illustrator uses 100% CPU, sustained, even when idle and no documents open
I've observed many times that when Illustrator (29.7.1, on macOS 15.6) is idle in the background, it's running a 100% CPU task. Even if I close all of its open documents, the CPU use is at 100% CPU, and stays there until I quit.
Mike Dean
shared this idea
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Mischa
commented
Still an issue with macOS 26.4 (Tahoe) and Illustrator 30.3 (Updated 6 days ago). I was wondering why my Macbook Pro M4 was so slow and Activity Monitor was showing Illustrator using CPU sustained, idle and no documents open at 100%+.
I do let my Macbook Pro sleep but that should not be an issue in 2026?? -
No Way
commented
I'm seeing the same with Illustrator 29.8.2 on macOS 26
Constantly high CPU usage and sluggish performance even in simple documents
At this point I think Illustrator for mac is in desperate need of a full rewrite
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K-O
commented
I have the same issue on 2 different Macs. Both are on the current versions of Illustrator. This has been going on for about the last year.
Illustrator will consume 100% CPU with nothing open. M1 machine gets hot. Seems to be a memory leak.