What does the process 'Locum' do?

I am seeing a process titled, 'Locum' show up in my OS X process list. Does anyone know the details of what this process does?

markdorison

Posted 2010-11-05T20:30:57.920

Reputation: 513

3If you see that is using a large amount of resources, you are probably emptying your trash or the trash is being emptied in the background; it can also eat CPU if you have a large number of "preview" windows opened. – None – 2012-02-06T21:37:32.820

1Locum also appears when copying old Time Machine data sets from one drive to another. The finder needs escalated privileges to be able to copy everything that's inside the backups. – Tonin – 2013-02-13T14:50:29.747

@user117090 — What would the process Locum have to do with "preview" windows ? – Nicolas Barbulesco – 2013-11-24T17:15:27.403

Answers

Google says that it's a helper process for Finder, that does all the stuff Finder would need escalated privileges for.

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams

Posted 2010-11-05T20:30:57.920

Reputation: 100 516

Yup, Locum is used for privilege escalation: http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8293436

– Madison S – 2010-11-05T21:06:45.393

1And you should always kill Locum whenever you kill Finder while doing anything privileged because it'll keep hogging resources for whatever Finder was doing. – Jeff Burdges – 2014-04-14T15:46:09.837

In addition to what's said, if you choose to "Secure Empty Trash..." in Finder, Locum will consume a lot of resources because it will re-write the data (possibly several times) of where your trashed items resided. This will ensure you can never ever recover them.

h q

Posted 2010-11-05T20:30:57.920

Reputation: 631