Articles on: Troubleshooting

Curiosity uses lots of CPU

Help, my computer is working hard!



When you first install Curiosity, you might notice your computer is working hard for a while. You might even hear the fan go on.
Don't worry - that's normal and it will get better!

Here we'll explain what's happening, how long it lasts, and how you can manage it.

What's happening?



After setup, the app is doing two things:
Downloading data from your cloud accounts to your computer (it's removed afterward indexing)
Indexing your data, i.e. preparing your data for search

For initial indexing, the app needs to use CPU. Afterwards, CPU usage should drop to almost nothing (unless you're actively searching).

💡 Ongoing indexing of new files does not require a lot of CPU because there are far fewer of them.

How long does initial indexing take?



Initial indexing usually takes between a few minutes and several hours.

It depends on:
How much data you connect
What your data looks like (many small files take longer than a few large ones)
How powerful your computer is

As a rough benchmark, indexing 100.000 files on a modern MacBook Pro takes 2-3h.

⚠️ If you see initial indexing taking longer than a day or two (without connecting very large amounts of data), please contact us at hello@curiosity.ai

How can I manage CPU usage during indexing?



The Curiosity app tries to manage CPU usage during indexing, e.g. by pausing when you're in battery mode or when other programs are using CPU.

In addition, it gives you two ways of managing CPU usage during indexing:
Pause indexing
Schedule indexing

💡 Check our user guide to see how to configure indexing

Updated on: 28/07/2023

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