chronod on Mac – High CPU Use & Network Access Requests Explained
Some Mac users occasionally discover the ‘chronod’ process in MacOS is either consuming a large amount of system resources, or is requesting access to network connections. Sometimes chronod is flagged by overly zealous anti-virus apps as well. While there are plenty of people who ignore this kind of thing, another curious type of Mac user is actively curious about what specific resource heavy processes are, or what the intention is behind a process that wants or requires internet access.
So what is chronod on the Mac, why is it using high CPU and system resources, and why does it want network access? Let’s explore the chronod process a bit to better understand it’s fuction.
What is chronod?
The chronod process is a launch agent that is part of the “ChronoCore framework”, which is a component of modern MacOS versions. Therefore chronod is part of MacOS, and it is signed by Apple.
It appears that chronod is associated with synchronizing user data on the Mac, and is often associated with widgets and data synchronization.
While there is little direct information about this for MacOS, there is more information found online regarding chronod associations with widgets and iOS, and since MacOS and iOS share the same fundamental architecture with many features and daemons shared between the two, chronod is likely in the same camp.
Where is chronod located?
The chronod process and launch agent is part of the ChronoCore framework and can be found at the system level of MacOS.
The direct path to chronod is at the following location in MacOS:
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ChronoCore.framework/Support/chronod
Because this is a component of MacOS, you should absolutely not attempt to modify the file or remove it.
Why is Norton or other anti-virus software flagging chronod?
Many third party anti-virus apps for Mac are over zealous and will flag just about any process or task that requests network access.
In fact, Norton even has a support article on on their own site about allowing access to chronod, but there’s no explanation about what the task is or what it does.
The reality is that most Mac users do not need to use anti-virus or anti-malware tools from third parties, because MacOS includes many features natively to prevent virus and malware attacks, and as long as the Mac is kept up to date, they are very well protected by default.
–
In short, chronod is a component of modern MacOS, and while it may occasionally use high amounts of CPU which go noticed by the user, or may occasionally be flagged by third party anti-virus software and firewall software, it’s nothing that you should be alarmed by.
