Claude desktop exceeds macOS disk-write watchdog limit during long sessions

Summary

Claude desktop app repeatedly triggers macOS's sustained disk-write watchdog, causing the OS to kill the process. Three separate incidents over 8 days on the same machine.

Environment

• Hardware: Mac15,10 (MacBook Pro M-series), arm64, 36 GB RAM, 14 CPUs
• macOS: 26.4.1 (Build 25E253)
• Claude versions: 1.3109.0 and 1.4758.0 (same behavior on both)

Incidents

All three are disk writes events from macOS Diagnostic Reports. The OS reports file-backed memory being dirtied at a sustained rate exceeding the 24-hour limit.

| Date | Version | Dirtied | Duration | Rate | Limit |
|------|---------|---------|----------|------|-------|
| 2026-04-24 | 1.3109.0 | 8,589 MB | 83,432s (~23h) | 102.96 KB/s | 99.42 KB/s |
| 2026-04-26 | 1.4758.0 | 2,147 MB | 47,345s (~13h) | 45.36 KB/s | 24.86 KB/s |
| 2026-04-28 | 1.4758.0 | 8,589 MB | 73,791s (~20h) | 116.41 KB/s | 99.42 KB/s |

Contributing factor

The April 28 report also shows com.apple.fm.language.instruct_3b.tokenizer (Apple Intelligence Writing Tools) being loaded 183+ times over the session lifetime, triggered by token-generation-inference. This adds sustained I/O pressure on top of Claude's own writes.

Reproduction

Leave Claude desktop open with active conversations for 13-24 hours. The disk-write rate accumulates continuously and eventually crosses the macOS 24-hour rolling limit, after which macOS terminates the process.

Impact

Process termination mid-session with no warning. The user reported the system becoming unresponsive before the kill due to swap pressure from the sustained writes.

Diagnostic reports

Three .diag files are available:

• /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Claude_2026-04-24-154957_Thomass-MacBook-Pro.diag
• /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Claude_2026-04-26-112623_Thomass-MacBook-Pro.diag
• /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Claude_2026-04-28-221132_Thomass-MacBook-Pro.diag

Happy to attach these if there is a preferred upload method.

Workaround

Restarting Claude desktop every few hours prevents the rolling 24-hour write total from accumulating to the limit.