What is ksfetch process on Mac?

Question

Sometimes I see a ksfetch process on my Mac. After a little googling I found out that it is Google software updater. However, there is no detailed answer i.e. what is ksfetch process used for? Is it really required? Can I get rid of it? Sometimes it uses my internet bandwidth so it frustrates me hence the query. Thanks.

Answer 1

Keystone Fetch / ksfetch

The ksfetch process on OS X is part of Google Chrome's update mechanism. The ks prefix is an abbreviation of Keystone. The process appears to be responsible for fetching updates to Google's products. It is this role that uses your bandwidth.

Using slick's answer you can disable the corresponding process that uses ksfetch.

Alternatively, it appears possible to adjust the frequency of update checks:

Entering the following code into your terminal will make it check once a week rather than every few hours:

defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 604800

To learn more about, follow the links below:

• Little Snitch + Google Chrome = ksfetch issues
• ksfetch, little-snitch, the escalation of mutually fooling …

Answer 2

Yes, you can disable it.

To do this just for you in Terminal type:

~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py --uninstall

for all users:

/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py --uninstall

On some machines it's ksinstall instead of install.py.

Answer 3

You can uninstall it, type /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --help to see available options.

--nuke can uninstall everything related to it, just like this: /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --nuke

Answer 4

They have changed this command to --nuke instead of --uninstall and the path is now different as well. So the new command for all users would be:

/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --nuke

Answer 5

There is an issue with Google Chrome that it creates a temp file to check for updates every x hours. Since it's making a new temp file for some reason it sets off Little Snitch, which is quite annoying.

By entering the following code into Terminal, it will make it check once a week rather than every few hours:

defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 604800

Hopefully one of the next versions of Google Chrome they will address this, as it is very annoying having to click allow/deny every x hours.

Answer 6

ksinstall didn't seem to do anything, no matter how many incantation of --nuke I used. Nor ksadmin.

This seemed to help:

 $ ps -ef | grep ksfetch
 501   976   855   0  3:54PM ??         0:00.09 /Users/user/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/MacOS/ksfetch

then rename it

 sudo mv /Users/user/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/MacOS/ksfetch /Users/user/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/MacOS/ksfetch.dis

It goes away for "awhile"

If that doesn't work that this seems to help (if it's bandwidth you're concerned with):

 $ irb
 > loop { sleep 0.5; system("killall ksfetch") }

See also https://superuser.com/questions/1359017/how-do-i-disable-automatic-updates-of-google-chrome-on-mac-os-x/1453781#1453781

Answer 7

The simplest way to disable ksfetch is to uninstall Google Chrome. There are many other browsers.

Answer 8

Software update checks really shouldn't be using noticeable bandwidth or CPU, although actual Updates may, of course.

But this is Google software, a notorious RAM and disk space hog. (If you didn't know that Chrome archives old versions inside the current one, bloating at every update, here's a short summary of to how to fix it). So...

As a fan of the GUI approach, my instinct is always to open the .plist first, located in this case at:

~/Library/Preferences/com.google.Keystone.Agent.plist

Here you can see the default SU checkInterval value is 18000 seconds (5 hours). With a suitable editor, or the terminal command in previous replies, you can change this to eg 604800 (7 days).

However, it's also possible to edit lastCheckStartDate and lastServerCheckDate, which I'm going to experiment with in case this fools Keystone into to laying low until a set date. Here I'm setting them one month in the future to see what happens.

I've had major issues with Keystone in the past (and struggled to kill and completely remove it) and there are websites dedicated to claims that it slows Macs and causes high CPU usage on Window Server.

I can't comment on the current version. For now, I'm hoping that messing with the lastServerCheckDate will put the Keystone dragon to sleep until a predetermined date.

I'll post any insights I gain.