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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?

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    I tried the man pages as well, since they usually nicely describe daemons... Of course parsecd doesn't have an entry – JustSid Jan 1 '17 at 10:23
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    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 1 '17 at 17:28
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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 Screenshot Little Snitch Research Assistent


Little Snitch 4 (CalendarAgent used for an example) Screenshot Little Snitch Research Assistent

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    All these years of owning Little Snitch and I never clicked that button... Hah. Thank you very much! – JustSid Jan 1 '17 at 10:46
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    Actually it also helps optimize the Kessel Run... sorry off topic. – Steve Chambers Jan 2 '17 at 20:51
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    Yes, thank you as well... this button is really hidden in plain sight :/ – davidhq Jan 7 '17 at 21:20
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    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
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As described in

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

it is location-based suggestions for Siri.

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    "Spotlight, Messages, Lookup & Safari Suggestions use your location to provide more accurate local results." – Simon Woodside Jun 9 '17 at 1:12
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    @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
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    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
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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.

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