Severe lag and freezing after macOS Tahoe update on MacBook Pro M1

nico4d wrote:

The experience has been terrible for the last week. After a few hours of use, restarting becomes imperative. The mouse pointer and windows lagging behind every click and drag, sometimes appearing and disappearing randomly all over the desktop.

Please Apple, update Tahoe ASAP!

I'm running it on MacBook Pro M1 Pro 1TB (half empty) 32Gb Ram

I would try reinstalling the macOS on top of it self to sort upgrade anomalies like yours

How to reinstall macOS

Recovery (both M1/M2/M3/M4 and Intel) — How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

if no resolve—

You can get a good look at your User/System config. and reveal conflicts or issues, you can download/run this trusted utility https://etrecheck.com

If you need help interpreting the report you can post it here in its entirety in the "Additional Text" box in the editing toolbar below, in your reply.

unplug all non-essential peripherals when testing

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

This seems to be helping :

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1no872w/psa_macos_26_bug_leads_to_performance_issues_in/

macOS 26.0 (including the public release) has a bug that makes many apps slower the longer they run. I have read issues about native apps, Electron apps, games . 

You could only temporarily solve it by restarting the app.

Fortunately a developer found the culprit: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/issues/33182#issuecomment-3289846957

To disable the problematic feature for all apps thus fixing the issue, run the following command in the Terminal:

defaults write -g NSAutoFillHeuristicControllerEnabled -bool false

And restart all apps/system. Note this also disables macOS's native autofill feature.

Update: there are actually two separate bugs causing input lag and (GPU) perf issues. The provided command above likely only fixes the former issue (input lag).

To fix the perf issues for Electron apps (and presumably Chrome/Chromium browsers?), also run:

launchctl setenv CHROME_HEADLESS 1

Note this needs to be re-run every time you reboots. Thanks for u/PatrikCR for the heads up!

Switched Back to MacOS Sequoia 15.7

Oct 2nd 2025

My Mac is like 1000% faster...

For Tahoe, I tried everything,

even a full format and fresh install of MacOS Tahoe 26.01

with NOTHING else in the SSD !

It's an i9 2.4ghz with 64GB RAM and 4TB SSD...

So it is NOT a slow machine... or with limited RAM or Drive...

The Problem is obviously in Tahoe itself...

It's rather better to be thinking that for some obscure reason the OS was rushed out and it still needs a ton of bugs and performance fixes...

if this is the new MacOS going forward, it is simply a disaster.

After you re-install a fresh sequoia, You have no idea...

Literally You have NO IDEA... how smooth and fast it is...

How good it is compared to Tahoe...

After 2 weeks using it, You start forgetting how was the same Mac Running on Sequoia.

I'm surprised that in the major websites all the reviewers are praising MacOS Tahoe, so much...

Unless they are all "paid-out" by the Big Apple, to deliver fake reviews...

there is no way Tahoe can be praised as it is...

It's a disaster...

It transform the last and most capable INTEL MacBook Pro in a big paper brick.

The OS can barely run itself and not even in a a fluid and smooth experience in terms of speed and performance.

Every click, every action, is... SLOW... delayed...

And this ... just and only with the OS and safari to browse the internet, it is excruciatingly SLOW...

We not even talking about opening a few apps, multitasking etc...

Just running the OS and a browser with 2 or 3 windows... put a PRO MacBook on its knees...

With the FANS continually running, and the whole aluminum unibody overheating !!

And Yes, I did wait 24 hours for indexing and adjusting... on an empty SSD with the OS only...

And Yes, it was a full format fresh install...

I'm planning to get a new MB-Pro M4 or waiting for the M5...

But no way I want Tahoe as it is shipped today...

I also have a MM-M4 ... and it's rolling back to Sequoia tomorrow...

That one was also much faster prior installing Tahoe.

TonyMattheys wrote:

I experienced the same issue after Tahoe upgrade. May Mac was totally unusable it was so slow. I looked at Task manager and started to suspect that corespotlightd might be the root of all my troubles. I deleted all files under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and restarted my Mac. Result was night and day and it has been running smooth as silk for several days now.

Used this method on both my Macbook Pro and M4 Mini and it worked for me. No issues for several days now.

I can 100% verify that deleting all files under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and then restarting resolves sluggishness after installing Tahoe 26.1 — and I was experiencing all the same issues others have reported: significantly diminished performance in apps; laggy cursor, windows, menus, and click and drag actions; etc. This solution needs to be pinned or otherwise made more visible, as it's really buried, and I only stumbled across it after searching for a fix for over an hour. Make this the first thing you try, people — the results are uncanny!

Another user posted this

"I experienced the same issue after Tahoe upgrade. May Mac was totally unusable it was so slow. I looked at Task manager and started to suspect that corespotlightd might be the root of all my troubles. I deleted all files under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and restarted my Mac. Result was night and day and it has been running smooth as silk for several days now."

I couldn't be more pleased. After removing those files and restarting my M1 Mac mini everything has been stable and running fantastic for the past 10 days.

I hope the engineers at Apple are monitoring this thread and push out an update that incorporates this because Tahoe is great once you get past the major inconvenience.

To be clear my Mac was running very sluggish after the update to Tahoe. Windows would take forever to open, fields wouldn't populate the text written until long after I stopped pressing any keys, Zoom calls, FaceTime calls and phone calls would abruptly end without cause, and even searches through google felt like the early days of the internet. Thank you @AppleUsedToBeMyFriend you saved my regression back to the previous version.

TonyMattheys wrote:

I experienced the same issue after Tahoe upgrade. May Mac was totally unusable it was so slow. I looked at Task manager and started to suspect that corespotlightd might be the root of all my troubles. I deleted all files under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and restarted my Mac. Result was night and day and it has been running smooth as silk for several days now.

This has been a lifesaver. As a non tech girl I have been so worried about what to do with my Macs after upgrading to Tahoe. I was going to revert back to Seq OS but that looked complex and I was scared to do the reset.

This fixed both my devices which were effectively useless due to the lags and wheel of death if I so much as looked at the screen let alone tried to open anything.

Not sure why it isn't more prominently displayed by apple as a fix.

Time Machine backing up was the problem. It’s related to indexing, and the new Spotlight.

My computer was useless for days until I was able to erase my Time Machine backup drive and remove it from settings.

My computer is running fine now. Hallelujah!

I suspect Tahoe was re-indexed every Time Machine backup and trying to backup normally at the same time, without a state to backup from.

Indexing will slow things down a bit until it finishes. Not too much, though. In Time Machine settings, remove any external drives.

I experienced the same issue after Tahoe upgrade. May Mac was totally unusable it was so slow. I looked at Task manager and started to suspect that corespotlightd might be the root of all my troubles. I deleted all files under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and restarted my Mac. Result was night and day and it has been running smooth as silk for several days now.

Tony is me. :-)

I discovered that deleting everything under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and restarting my Mac got me back up and running. Hopefully this will help you too.

This begs the obvious question: what is different between the two?

Almost surely there is some third party old or incompatible agent, daemon or login item causing havoc.

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.

xander91107 wrote:

This is a huge mess… everything I do today beachballs… want to copy a line of text.. that will be a 2 second beach ball… want to reply to an email, 15 seconds of beach ball… open a file… whole system freezes for 10 seconds, beach ball, then maybe the file will open.

Mac Studio - M4 Max, 128 GB Ram, 2 TB HD

Please run Etrecheck and post its full report here. Use the "additional text" button and paste the report into the text box.

sandipbera35 wrote:

In MBP m3 pro base model , it is 100000x slower than sequia , tahoe is unusable , it is nothing but a ram eater , xcode is unusable with it , I want to back to sequia again

In YOUR M3 Pro, it may be 100000x slower.

That is not how most users are experiencing Tahoe.

Sure, you can jump through some hoops and reinstall Sequoia.

Or you could do some troubleshooting to find out what you have running on your mac that is causing the slowdown.

Start by booting into Safe Mode and you will probably find out that your mac is faster in Safe Mode (when it is usually the opposite).

You could run the diagnostic tool Etrecheck and post its report if you want others to help determine what it may be.

Hello,

The moderator needs to update the preferered method of resolving the problem. It seems clear that deleting all files stored under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and restarting your Mac is the most effective and least diruptful method, i.e. before deleting VPN software, etc.

Maybe no one response has more votes than the current “preferred method” but in agregate it is clear that the new Spotlight is involved, likely something to do with indexing, and that deleting the CoreSpotlight files helps “clear its head” so to speak. I wish their was someone on the forum who could provide more specific insight. Yes, we know that we can contact Apple tech support or Customer Feedback, but it would be nice if the Forum  did not have to make as many stabs in the dark.

hdulc wrote:

Having the same problem. I ran EtrePro - here's what it reports - the major issues were No system uptime found and No operating system found. Huh?!?!?!

Any ideas?

<EtrePro Report.log>

re: [Loaded] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac5

It has already been posted in the thread...

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS

read "cleaner"

<CleanMyMac5> do not install garbage apps— consider it malware with a convincing marketing scheme.

you are better off starting your own thread for your own issue for best results and more willing eyes to look at your specifics, not pile on to an existing thread 6 pages deep.