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Anyone know what nebulous and arcane icon service agent is? activity monitor.

Comes up 40% when run super duper, also see the equally mysterious Kernal task, but have given up long ago to know what that is. Thanks

I found several threads in the Developers forum from a couple of years ago about iconservicesagent eating too many CPU cycles. The concensus seem to come down on two things

1. too many icons and not enough memory to handle them all
2. a corrupted icon

I would start by flushing the user and system icon caches using TinkerTool System or similar app.

How To Geek on "What is kernel task"

Thanks Joe, are icon service agent literally about the little icon on files? Or something else.

Tinker Tool I don't see something spefically with word icon, is it there?

Or you think maybe this is what happens when you do clone backup? Maybe labor intensive.. and going to get that kernal and icon stuff going on?

I'm going to move that from 9am to 3am, when I'm asleep, just leave computer on now 24/ 7 is this ok or does it need to sleep?

Will nive not to see SD working, ans slows things down, though they claim it does not/ should not slow things down.. also it sits there for 1-2 hours.

Literally about the little icon files


It is in TinkerTool System 6 — not TinkerTool — under System Maintenance > Caches > Icon Caches


I have never encountered the situation and apparently it is rare or there would have been more reports of it and those were from two years ago and mostly in Developer's forums. I have no idea why you are encountering it now.


My computer often goes weeks without sleeping and has for many years.


Any clone process uses a tremendous amount of I/O and will inevitably have some impact on performance. I use Carbon Copy Cloner rather than SuperDuper but both use the same underlying MacOS tools to accomplish their task. CCC runs a clone on my system every morning at 03:00 so if there is any performance hit I am not awake to see it.

Thanks Joe, great info as usual.
Ok will upgrade to system 6 now. Can I just delete system 2 from finder, I don't see an uninstall.

3am.. that now what I'm be doing.

Is there a was to tell you computer to just turn off display at midnight? I do that manaully now.

Final question Joe, Software update, I get annoying badges in upper right computer, wont dismiss, and no option to not be annoyed.... later tonight, remind me tomorow etc. So I'm thinking of just not getting any software update notifications anymore.. opinion on that? Best.

If installing TinkerTool System 6 doesn't overwrite TinkerTool System 2 you can just drag TTS2 to the Trash and empty it.

CAUTION: it is never a good practice to keep old utilities around. Many rely on internal MacOS routines and functions (command line level stuff) and those evolve and change. Running an out of date utility can actually damage your system. Either keep them scrupulously up do date or delete/uninstall them. Running a version of a utility that is designed to work with a later version of MacOS than you have installed is equally risky. Most updaters will not permit you to install the wrong version of a utility, but not all — so it pays to read the instructions.

In Catalina > System Preferences > Energy Saver you can...

• set how long to leave the display on before turning itself off
• under Schedule you can set specific times for your computer to sleep and or wake up

There are several ways to stop the notifications:

1. System Preferences > Software Update > UNcheck "Automatically keep my Mac Up to date"
2. In Notification Center (the icon at the extreme far right end of the menu bar) click and then drag down to reveal two switches and turn the one labled "DO NOT DISTURB" on.
3. In System Preferences > Notifications select Do Not Disturb in the Sidebar and then under Turn on Do Not Disturb set the times From: 00:00 to 24:00

NOTE: I cannot in good conscience recommend any of these options. You want to install the system updates either automatically (which will notify you of the impending update) or manually (without the notifications you will not know the updates are available to be installed) and the other options turn off ALL notifications some (many?) of which might be critical. It only takes is a single click to dismiss them.

Thanks, I'm on Mojave. I like to wait 8 months before updating OS, wait for bugs get out.

If I choose auto update, then they'll install new OS right? No way to get that the OS out of auto update?

When I check "check updates", a badge come up on upper right, often blocking things I want to see. And often, the dropdown has 3 options, ,none of which say go away dismiss.

Like, download tonight, download later. It's maddening.

Joe, what about me setting an alert in calendar, say bi monthly to check software update. That should be fine no?

The last update was primarily a security update. Unless something egregious arises there will be no more bug fixes unless they very minor and can be fixed coincidentally with a security patch. Development has shifted almost entirely from MacOS 10.15 (Catalina) to its successor MacOS 10.16. If you look around most of the Catalina problems we are dealing with are self-inflicted and there have been very few actual bugs and the majority of those were pretty esoteric. Even some FineTunedMac contributors who have in the past been notorious for holding off on updates "until the bugs were out" have been among the very first to install the Catalina updates and there have been virtually zero issues as a result. Your best and easiest solution is to turn on Automatic updates and just let it happen. You may never even know when you were updated and Apple won't be nagging you to protect yourself from yourself.


System Preferences > Software Update and uncheck "Automatically keep my Mac up to date" will stop all automatic updates. If you click on the tab labeled "Advance" you can selectively activate/deactivte various automatic update functions including MacOS updates.


Apple has a vested interest in ensuring you stay up to date.It is the ONLY way they can protect you from malware! They are doing their best to protect you from yourself.


See my first comment.

Ok, Joe will do-- go with auto per your recommendation for future.

Pissed about 2 things. Dragthing one of my top 5 favorites softwares wont work post - Mojave and also Dreamweaver, I had old copy same thing, (but can use my old dW laboriously) with Parallels which I have now..

btw, Super Duper pointed out.. asked when super slow, if I have an anti virus, and it did occur I was trying the trial of Malewarebytes Premium and i think does really slow down the computer, so I may hold off on buy premium.

The icon caches issue does seem to be gone from activity monitor so that for that tip.. updated Tinker system

A principle reason MacOS is relatively clean, and stable is Apple's long held policy that there is a set limit to how long Apple hardware and software would be supported and third part software developers are solely responsible for maintaining compatibility. Unfortunately Adobe is not alone in making users pay for maintaining that compatibility and in many cases pricing many of us out of the market. Parallels sounds like a good solution, I will have to keep that in mind.


Check the facts: the free version of MalwareBytes only runs when manually activated by the user and the run seldom takes more than a few minutes. The premium version runs automatically but only periodically on a schedule set by the user (I have mine set to run every three hours). I have no idea why SuperDuper was running slowly, but it is my practice when making a clone to not use the system. Otherwise you are attempting to clone a constantly changing system forcing continual restarts.

Thanks Joe, excellent.

Ok, I am now going to run SD while sleeping.. 3am, so that should solve a lot of what you are talking about. I think I did that once, but decided to stop as i actually hear the hardrives in my room. I sleep in same room, but it's worth it to not have the clone backup going during the day while you many need to use the computer.

Ah.. ok, so my trial for Malwarebytes premium, I did not schedule anything.. so it was running in morning while SD was copying. It confirmed that with Malwarebytes as activity monitor had a real heavy Kernal and it was the slowness culprit.

Ok, so Malewarebytes does not have to been a traditional anti virus that just always going and going ruining system all time. That said, you have a point: nothing is better than running all time, nip everything in the bud.. but trade off too brutal.
How is running Maywarebytes premium, say at 5am for one hour. Just totally guess on that. Good?

If the hacker got in, it could still shoot down the threat? ... you do every 3 hours, for how long? I would prefer it just going from 1am to 7am..

I updated to Catalina last night, thanks for that final push, and from here on in. I just check to auto update as recommended, and not worry about the OS upgrade bugs getting out. I guess that is a think of the past.. Hey remember tech tool pro and what was other one to restore fix hard drives directories?.. those are thing of past too now right?

Small question: I had a few F keys that launching apss, and don't work now. I went into keyboard preference, shortcuts, and added an app, but bizarrely to get the add button to work they ask to type in an exact menu item name! And think that cancels it out.. Contradictory: you keyboard in the F key, F13 or F 16, but add button greyed out. ANd to get the add button blue and accept, they force the menu descriptions and then does not work.. lost on that if you can figure it out.

You are missing the point on MalwareBytes Premium, it doesn't run for an hour it performs a scan every hour (or at whatever interval you have chosen). The scan itself only takes a two or three minutes. If you didn't setup a schedule it was NOT running while SD was copying (although there may be a task running to start a scan on schedule).

Kernel task (by the way that is spelled kernel not kernal) was running because it is a tool used by MacOS to prevent the CPU, battery, and other hardware internals from overheating during heavy use such as cloning the system. Without it you risk overheating and damaging the computer.

Constantly running antivirus utilities are notorious for their negative effect on system performance.

Can you give me a specific example of the shortcut you are attempting to add? Is there already a shortcut associated with that key or combination?

There's nothing the least bit bizarre about what you've described. The functionality you're trying to invoke for launching apps works ONLY for invoking specific menu items, either universal or associated with a particular app. I've used it with no issues.

How did you originally set up your F keys as hot keys? I've never run across a way to do it without using a 3rd party app.

Thanks Joe/ ARtie

Joe, the Kernel was associated with Malwarebytebytes -- I sent email and they confirmed that.

Just schedule it to run various times from midnight to 8am ok?
(avoiding a 2 hour window for cloning).. You have it going every 3 hours 24/ 7? right.. but now that you say it just scans only for 5 minutes that does not sound to bad, but that Kernel was Malwarebytes and I think it was inhibiting the clone.

And you would buy premium for the latpop as well, even though the laptop does not have much going on with it except email and internet usage. (Desktop had lot os data...)

For the F key issue. I would like, for example F13 to launch Calendar. I can't seem to do that anymore since the Catalina update. It was launching Calendar with Mojave.

F13 could only have been launching Calendar if you set it to do so with a third party app, and your app has apparently failed you in Catalina...32 bits? You need to either update it or search for a new one.

Which app did you use?

Hmmm... You've mentioned Parallels, so you may find How to Run 32-Bit Apps in macOS Catalina helpful.

Email and internet usage — are the two principal sources of malware. In fact virtually the sole sources.

ARtie thanks, by Golly maybe I was launching from Drag Things, who know.. Artie/ Joe, do you have a good current app recommendation for launching the F keys?

Joe thanks. Ok will dive into premium... You have it going every hour or three hours around the clock? Well I send email to them also.. for tips.

Your problem is, indeed, DragThing, which hasn't been, and apparently never will be, upgraded to 64 bit.

I use Butler, which costs $20 and includes way more functionality than you're looking for.

Alfred has been around for years, is free, and is well reviewed, but you can find any number of similar apps on MacUpdate and the App Store.