What is notifyd?

notifyd is one of the most basic processes on macOS.

What is notifyd?

notifyd is the system notification daemon. It provides a lightweight, fast system for processes to signal each other about state changes. This is not the same as the user-visible Notification Centre.

What kind of notifications?

notifyd handles low-level system state notices:

• "The time zone changed"
• "The network settings changed"
• "A user logged in"
• "The system is about to sleep"
• "DNS settings were updated"

Thousands of these system-level notices flow through notifyd every second during normal use.

How is it different from distnoted?

notifyd handles Darwin notifications. These are simple name-based signals where one process posts a notification name and all registered listeners receive it. distnoted handles distributed notifications, which can carry extra data. Both are internal system messaging systems.

Does it use many resources?

No. Despite handling huge volumes of notifications, it is very light. Notifications are just signals, not data transfers.

Should you worry?

No. It is one of the most vital macOS processes. Without it, processes could not tell each other about basic state changes.

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