Outlook 2016 CPU usage running continuously at around 100%

Anonymous
2015-07-29T05:38:02+00:00

I recently purchased a Office 365 Business plan, and have installed the desktop Office 2016 apps. I am experiencing continuous high CPU utilization, causing the fan in my MacBook to run much of the time. Activity Monitor shows that Outlook is the culprit.

I have Outlook 15.11.2 and OS X 10.10.  I have one Exchange 2010 (SP2) accounts and two IMAP accounts. All are showing folders up to date, and mail is being sent & received normally.

I haven't noticed any issues with the other Office 2016 applications.

I have already tried creating a new identity and setting up accounts again from there (rather than importing from OUtlook 2011 which I did at first installation), but it did not help.

I have also installed the suite on my iMac, and experience the same issue there, so it is not specific to my laptop.

There is an earlier thread on this issue, started in 2014 and with posts up to mid July this year, with not a single response from MSFT. It is clear there is a bug here, as it stands I am going to have to abandon Outlook 2016 and revert to 2011, so if it can't be fixed I'd like a refund.

Outlook | MacOS | Legacy Outlook for Mac | For business

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Anonymous
2017-03-14T12:50:52+00:00

I tried every option listed in this thread - to no avail.

What worked for me was to turn off Dictation:  (System Preferences\Accessibility\Dictation) 

As soon as I did that, the CPU use returned to normal instantly.

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  1. Jim G 134.1K Reputation points MVP
    2016-12-20T15:41:38+00:00

    Thanks to people who post good replies like yours, Microsoft will know what's causing the problem and can fix it! Thank you for posting.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-12-25T13:28:04+00:00

    Hi, 

    I have done most of the things mentioned in this thread, and I have actually reduced Outlook CPU consumption to an acceptable level. What really helped was the complete uninstall and reinstall of Office 2016.

    But now I have another problem because the search function in Outlook is not working at all. It returns "No results" not matter what I am searching for. When trying to search the Mac with Spotlight absolutely nothing happens.  

    Anybody who have the golden idea to solve that problem?

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-01-05T18:18:02+00:00

    But now I have another problem because the search function in Outlook is not working at all. It returns "No results" not matter what I am searching for. When trying to search the Mac with Spotlight absolutely nothing happens.  

    Anybody who have the golden idea to solve that problem?

     

    See this thread (there are several others like it):  https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice\_outlook-mso\_mac/unable-to-search-emails/c7cf6243-a752-4f32-85a9-59d8aaa37af5?page=1&msgId=e8ecf6d5-aea7-441e-bfd8-85f03d0967bc

    The comments marked "Answer" may be out of context unless you read through the thread.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-01-31T19:42:39+00:00

    What worked for me was to delete my Exchange account in Outlook, and re-add it. That allowed Outlook to start from a clean slate. I was having issues after changing Macs and using time machine to restore apps/data.

    in hindsight, I should have re-installed apps after changing computers, since the new computer was running Sierra, and my previous one was running El Capitan

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