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Mac computers have long had a reputation as systems that seem to use relatively high-end components that go into similar, uniform designs from Apple. Many people who enjoy Macs like how the iOS operating system runs, the seamless integration of systems or processes between different devices that the company makes, and the relative security these kinds of computers can offer to their users. How processes in the background run on Macs and iOS software can be a bonus, too.
Some users may find Core Sync pop up on their machines and wonder precisely what it entails. In most cases, it will ask people for certain access permissions to files or other things on the Mac itself. This could cause some confusion or concern for people, so we’ll talk about what Core Sync is in more detail below. Further, we can also touch upon how safe it might be, whether you can delete it, and some issues your system might encounter if Core Sync is running in the background.
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Table of Contents
What Is Core Sync on Mac?
Core Sync is one such process, and it is a background program that many services from Adobe might use. Its purpose is to help your Mac share data between itself and Adobe’s own Creative Cloud.
Creative Cloud gives you access to web-based services, apps, and other things that can help you use the company’s products for images, video, and graphics editing in general. As the name implies, the process syncs things you do on various Adobe products. In this way, people who use Adobe Creative Cloud can do so without interruption, regardless of which devices they might choose to use.
The Creative Cloud from Adobe is designed to be a hub where people who might want to do video editing, photography, graphic design, painting, or simple drawings can access many of the company’s latest apps or features, all in one place. Even social media is something you can work on with the Creative Cloud, so you can think of it as a larger set of programs that you might use for almost any creative endeavor.
Part of what this cloud service relies on is the Core Sync feature. In addition to some of the perks above, Core Sync can help your Adobe products sync documents or items that you might create in Illustrator, Photoshop, and more.
Is Core Sync Safe?
Core Sync should be safe enough for most users. While no program is completely free from any risk of intrusion, harm, bad updates that can cause bugs, or other things, Core Sync is something that developers at Adobe have spent much time working on.
The process works in tandem with the company’s own Creative Cloud, and it could be necessary in order to access some of the features that you might want to use. That said, you do need to grant certain permissions in order to allow Core Sync to do its job.
Most notably, the application may ask for access to certain folders in which you store data, but this is mostly due to it wanting to sync the contents of those folders between devices.
Adobe is a company that got its start decades ago, and it has come up in the technology world as a trusted developer of software that often focuses on aspects of graphic design and related endeavors. Since it began, it has created and managed operational centers in different parts of the world, and it employs several thousand people to work on its projects.
In short, users can think of it as a reputable company that does its best to put out products that are both useful and safe. While some of Adobe’s processes may have bugs in certain updates that might need to be fixed, there is little to suggest that there is anything actively harmful in running things like Core Sync on your Mac.
There may be some secondary concerns with precisely how these processes might affect a computer’s hardware temporarily, but we will cover these things in a later section.
Can I Delete Core Sync on My Mac?
Some people may have trouble getting rid of Core Sync on their machines. One common case is downloading and using trial versions of some of Adobe’s products.
In such instances, it is common for the company to want to install Core Sync as part of the process that can help you access all the features you might want to try during the trial. However, some users may notice that stay on their systems after they have already removed any of the applicable programs from Adobe.
While this might not be problematic, it does mean that Core Sync might take up system resources in the background needlessly when it runs. With no Adobe programs or features to sync, there is no reason to have Core Sync on a system.
Trying to delete the process from your Mac without using the proper steps could result in some kind of system instability.
Fortunately, there is a way you can check to see if Core Sync is lingering on your Mac after the removal of Adobe programs. Furthermore, Adobe has provided some insight into how to get rid of it.
How Do Safely Remove Delete Core Sync on Mac?
If you tried some Adobe products but decided they were not for you, you probably removed them from your Mac after the trial period ended. Even if so, processes in the background like Core Sync might continue to run unabated.
When this happens, it is best to follow the company’s own advice for removing remnants of its programs. In order to facilitate this, Adobe has provided consumers with its own tool, the Creative Cloud Cleaner.
As we touched on, Core Sync works with part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud to keep things you create current across all devices. If you ever want to get rid of it, the company itself makes a handy tool that is designed for just such a purpose. Adobe recommends using the Creative Cloud Cleaner whenever you would like to remove files related to its products completely.
With that said, it is important to take a few precautions before you run the tool. Most notably, make sure you have backups of any files you do not want to lose stored elsewhere. Adobe also has a log collector that you should run prior to the cleaner.
The log collector is a good first step that can help the company’s support staff assist you later if there turns out to be a problem with the removal, such as unexpected loss of data. After that, you can run the tool by following these steps:
1. Make sure everything that you want is fully synced before running the removal tool.
2. Use your Task Manager to close out instances of Adobe Creative Cloud and Core Sync. This will ensure they are not running in any form on your system.
3. In the macOS, find the Core Sync folder location nestled inside Adobe Support Library file path and save a copy of it.
4. Download the tool for your operating system and choose to run the disk image file.
5. There will be some menus and agreements to go through. Once done, the cleaner will do its job.
Afterwards, everything related to the Creative Cloud should be gone from your system, with the saves and files you backed up being the only notable exceptions.
It is important to remember that Adobe chooses to only provide easy downloads for its two most recent versions of the Creative Cloud. If you are working from or need access to versions older than that, be sure that you have the means to install them from a hard disk before you delete the programs from your Mac.
Why Does Core Sync Show High CPU Usage?
You may find cases in which Core Sync shows that it is using a very high percentage of your Mac’s CPU. In fact, it could use almost the full capacity of the CPU, coming within one or two percent of the upper limit.
It may stay that way for as long as it is open, thus hogging almost all of the central processor’s resources. Because the CPU is working so hard, the fans on your Mac computer may run at a high, audible speed almost constantly.
Core Sync may be using such a high percentage of the CPU when the syncing process itself occurs.
However, if you’re getting high usage constantly, it could indicate that the program may not be genuine or there is some other bug that the company needs to address first.
It is important to note that a non-genuine copy of Core Sync is not necessarily malicious, but it can still cause instability issues that make it use an inordinate amount of the resources available to the CPU.
How To Fix Core Sync High CPU Usage on Mac
The first thing to do is see if your application is up to date. There may be a recent update or patch that is supposed to fix high CPU usage on Core Sync. If everything looks like it is running on the most current version, you may be dealing with a copy that is not genuine.
To fix this, we recommend using the steps above to uninstall it fully and then re-install the latest version on Adobe’s website.
Conclusion
Adobe has some wonderful products that can help with almost anything you can think of that might be related to graphics. With so many options, it’s great to have the Creative Cloud at one’s disposal to keep everything streamlined and backed up.
Core Sync is an essential part of how these features work, but it can have some issues of its own. Although it is safe to use, there are cases where it might try to consume too many system resources. You can try some of our fixes to see if the problem clears up.