What is coreaudiod?

coreaudiod handles all sound on your Mac.

What is coreaudiod?

coreaudiod is the Core Audio daemon. Every sound your Mac plays or records goes through it. System alerts, music, video calls, voice memos, game sounds: all of it is mixed and routed by this process.

What does it do?

coreaudiod handles:

• Audio mixing: blending sound from several apps into one output stream
• Routing: sending audio to the right device, whether that is speakers, headphones, AirPods, or HDMI
• Format conversion: converting between different audio formats and sample rates
• Device management: spotting when audio devices are plugged in or unplugged
• Low-latency processing: providing real-time audio for music production and recording

Why does audio sometimes stop working?

Now and then coreaudiod gets stuck. Audio goes quiet, becomes garbled, or plays through the wrong device. The standard fix is to restart it:

sudo killall coreaudiod

macOS will relaunch it straight away, and sound should return to normal. This is safe and Apple Support often suggest it.

Does it use many resources?

It uses very little CPU during normal playback. CPU use goes up with:

• Several audio streams playing at once
• Audio plugins in music apps
• High sample rates or small buffer sizes in professional audio work
• Bluetooth audio devices, which need real-time codec processing

What if I see high CPU usage?

High CPU from coreaudiod usually means:

• A faulty audio plugin
• A Bluetooth audio device with connection trouble
• An app sending bad audio data

Try unplugging Bluetooth audio devices or closing audio apps one by one to find the cause.

Should you worry?

No. Without coreaudiod, your Mac would have no sound at all.

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