What is parsecd?

Question

The internet is not very satisfactory when it comes to this question, I found one somewhat related question here where someone says allowing parsecd internet access via Little Snitch made their keyboard input smoother. But what the heck does parsecd actually do? I do see it pop up regularly via Little Snitch, and I would love to know what it does. Can anyone shed some light?

I tried the man pages as well, since they usually nicely describe daemons... Of course parsecd doesn't have an entry — JustSid, Jan 01 '17 at 10:23
Answering the question that wasn't quite asked: at a guess the reason why keyboard input smoothness improves when you allow access is because input is processed through it to allow for suggestions, and its handling of the error condition where it can't get internet access is less efficient than its handling of successful connections. — Periata Breatta, Jan 01 '17 at 17:28

score 47 · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-19T09:05:56.237

47

According to Little Snitch Research Assistent it is used for Suggestions in Spotlight, Messages, Lookup and Safari and usually connects to api.smoot.apple.com.

Little Snitch 3

Little Snitch 4 (CalendarAgent used for an example)

edited Jun 19 '17 at 09:05

answered Jan 01 '17 at 10:44

17

All these years of owning Little Snitch and I never clicked that button... Hah. Thank you very much! – JustSid Jan 01 '17 at 10:46
3

Actually it also helps optimize the Kessel Run... sorry off topic. – Steve Chambers Jan 02 '17 at 20:51
1

Yes, thank you as well... this button is really hidden in plain sight :/ – davidhq Jan 07 '17 at 21:20
1

I had no idea there was a LS Research Assistant. Thanks for pointing that out. It's only taken me like 5 years to discover this very handy feature! – inspirednz Apr 27 '17 at 22:58
There is a way to manually consult that database without send the request? For example through a website? – Paulo Oliveira Feb 23 '18 at 22:44
Would it kill Apple to name this executable with actual words? Glad I found this so I can turn it off the hard way. – William Entriken Aug 11 '22 at 13:58

Tomáš Pánik · Answer 2 · 2019-01-26T19:52:54.413

8

As described in

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/CoreParsec.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/Info.plist

it is location-based suggestions for Siri.

edited Jan 26 '19 at 19:52

answered Jan 01 '17 at 17:16

Tomáš Pánik

537

1

"Spotlight, Messages, Lookup & Safari Suggestions use your location to provide more accurate local results." – Simon Woodside Jun 09 '17 at 01:12
1

@SimonWoodside 's quote is from the "Privacy - Location Usage Description" in the Info.plist. Although it doesn't mention Siri in that description, siri does show up in the "Bundle identifier" entry in that file: "com.apple.siri.parsec.CoreParsec" – jk7 May 12 '18 at 21:09
2

even though i have siri off, location services for siri off, and using nexdns.io (which blocks api.smoot.apple.com) parsecd is still not giving up and going crazy eating the cpu. 18k requests were already blocked. excellent job apple. – minusf Apr 20 '20 at 10:02

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 23 '17 at 01:16

Okay, well I disabled that know-it-all Siri right after installing Sierra a week ago, and today is the first parsecd request I’ve seen.

Location services were disabled under under El Cap, but I now see a Siri entry that’s checked but greyed out. I suspected that was because she was disabled so I reenabled her. But her location service is still checked and grayed out - no way to disable it!

Guess I’ll just have to block connections with LS to silence the cunning little witch.

What is parsecd?

3 Answers3

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