It's 2026 and this is STILL a problem.
Been having this issue for YEARS. Device is a 2020 13-in MacBook Air, Big Sur 11.7.10. Husband purchased it new in 2020, didn't use it much and gave it to me the following year. KPs started within a year of me using it.
I do not use the Photos app, and I have disabled iCloud on all of my devices. The photo library of the photos that did come over from my iPod when I synced it is on an external drive that I rarely connect to the computer (I moved it for disk space).
I do not use external monitors or even semi-permanent external HDs. 99% of the time the only things connected to it are the charging cable (the one that originally came with the computer) and a pair of headphones. It is connected to WiFi, but no other network.
I don't have a lot of the apps that have been giving others here problems... I really mostly use this for internet browsing and household spreadsheets/basic word processing. I don't have Dropbox or any Google apps installed. I haven't installed anything at all since... maybe last fall?
It has crashed during active use maybe 2-3 times, 99% of crashes are overnight while it's idle.
When it crashes during active use, I get a fair bit of warning... this computer always runs warm to begin with, but when it's about to crash the fans go nuts, like seriously it sounds like a jet engine trying to take off. It also slows down a LOT. If I'm quick enough, I can save/close things and shut it down myself, but usually I get as far as save/close before it hangs and I can't shut down via the Apple menu. Usually it just sits there roaring for takeoff for minutes on end before I hold down the power button and put it out of its misery. When I reboot it, it gives me the 'your Mac was restarted because of a problem' message with the error report.
Early on, I tried disabling any and all sleep/power saving settings, which helped a little -- went from crashing literally every single night to crashing once a week. It also seems that the more apps I leave open, the more likely it is to crash. Lately I'm experimenting with actually minimising the apps I do leave open (literally only Firefox and Music) before I walk away from the computer. So far that might also be helping? (I do NOT have the 'sync over WiFi' setting turned on on either my phone or my iPod.)
In the last week it's gotten exponentially worse, from once a week (sometimes longer) to 3-4 times a week. Yesterday it crashed during active use but I caught it early and was actually able to shut it down myself.