Cursor pins the CPU anytime I edit any file

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Everytime I open any file these days my CPU usage goes up to 1000% on an M4 Max. We work in a monolithic typescript repo that is very large. Cursor has become unusable and several of my teammates have switched off of it. It often stays pinned even after force quiting the app and I need to run a killall on anything related to Cursor. I’ve tried disabling all extensions and it makes no difference.

Steps to Reproduce

Find a huge, gross typescript repo maybe?

Expected Behavior

Stop pinning my entire system

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

Screenshot 2026-01-29 at 09.41.25.png
Screenshot 2026-01-29 at 09.41.25.png562×1792 139 KB

Operating System

MacOS

Version Information

Version: 2.4.22 (Universal)
VSCode Version: 1.105.1
Commit: 618c607a249dd7fd2ffc662c6531143833bebd40
Date: 2026-01-26T22:51:47.692Z
Build Type: Stable
Release Track: Default
Electron: 39.2.7
Chromium: 142.0.7444.235
Node.js: 22.21.1
V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

2 Likes
3

Hey, thanks for the report. This looks like an indexing issue with a large monorepo.

From your screenshot, Cursor Helper (Plugin) is using 1284% CPU. That’s the extension host that indexes the project for AI. In large TypeScript monorepos, this is a common problem.

Try this:

  1. Add a .cursorignore file to the project root:
**/node_modules
**/.git
**/dist
**/build
**/.next
**/.cache
**/coverage
**/__pycache__
**/*.pyc
  1. Check project size:
  • How many files are in the monorepo? If it’s thousands, indexing can take minutes.
  • CMD + Shift + P > Developer: Open Process Explorer. This shows which process is using CPU.
  1. If it still doesn’t help:
  • Cursor Settings > Indexing & Docs. Try turning it off.
  • Cursor Settings > Privacy Mode (if available). This might reduce load.

Can you share:

  • Total file count in the project
  • A screenshot from Process Explorer
  • Which folders are the largest in the monorepo

This is a known issue with big projects. The team is working on optimizations, but the .cursorignore workaround helps most users for now.

4

We’ve got roughly ~50k files. I added the cursor ignore and hopefully that will help. I will report back.

One thing I found odd was that often when it gets pinned I don’t see any process reported using that much CPU in “Developer: Open Process Explorer”. In fact, I could fully close Cursor and the process would still hang around.

1 Like
5

Alright I think the cursorignore mostly fixed the issue. There are still really aggressive spikes when switching branches, but that is manageable. I honestly just kill cursor, switch branches, and open it again. Not great, but doable