Is Your Mac Slow After the macOS Tahoe Update? Here’s How to Fix It

Why Does macOS Tahoe 26 Feel Sluggish? 8 Steps to Speed Up Your Mac

Updating to a new operating system should be an exciting experience, but it can be disappointing when your Mac feels slower after the change. If you have recently installed macOS Tahoe 26 and noticed a decrease in performance, you are not alone. Many users report general sluggishness, stuttering animations, and applications that take longer to open and respond. These issues can disrupt your workflow and make using your computer a chore.

This guide provides clear, straightforward steps to diagnose and resolve these performance problems. We will explore the common causes of a slow Mac after the macOS Tahoe update and offer practical solutions to restore its speed. By following these recommendations, you can improve your Mac’s responsiveness and enjoy the new features of the operating system without the frustration of lag.

Initial Slowdown After the macOS Tahoe Update

It is normal for your Mac to feel slow immediately after a major software update. This is because the system is performing many essential tasks in the background. Think of it like moving into a new house; even after all your boxes are inside, you still need to unpack and organize everything before it feels like home. Your Mac does something similar with its new operating system.

After installing macOS Tahoe 26, your computer begins a series of intensive background processes. These tasks are crucial for the long-term stability and performance of your system. They include:

• Spotlight Indexing: Your Mac rebuilds the entire search index for Spotlight. This process, managed by services like mds, mdworker, and mds_stores, scans every file on your computer. It allows you to find documents, emails, and photos instantly later on. While this indexing occurs, file access and searches can feel slow.
• Photos Library Analysis: The Photos app scans your entire library to identify faces, objects, and scenes. This powers features like Memories and improved search capabilities. This is a resource-heavy task that can consume significant processing power.
• System Cache Rebuilding: macOS clears out old system caches and builds new ones that are optimized for macOS Tahoe. Caches are temporary files that help your Mac run faster, but they need to be recreated for the new system.
• File and Storage Optimization: The operating system analyzes your storage drive and optimizes how files are stored. This helps ensure that your Mac can read and write data efficiently.

These background activities use a lot of your Mac’s processor (CPU) and memory (RAM). High CPU usage generates heat, which is why your MacBook might feel warmer than usual. It also consumes more power, leading to a temporary decrease in battery life. You can observe this activity by opening the Activity Monitor application (found in Applications > Utilities). In the CPU tab, you will likely see processes with names containing “mds” or “photoanalysisd” using a high percentage of your processor’s power.

The solution to this initial slowdown is patience. The best course of action is to let your Mac complete these tasks undisturbed.

• Keep your Mac plugged into a power source to ensure it has enough energy for these intensive processes.
• Leave your Mac turned on and awake overnight for one or two nights. This gives it ample time to finish its work without interrupting you.

Within a day or two, you should notice a significant improvement in performance. The background processes will finish, and your Mac will return to its normal, responsive state. If your Mac is still slow after 48 hours, you can proceed with the following steps.

Adjust Visual Effects for Better Responsiveness

macOS Tahoe 26 introduces a new design aesthetic called “Liquid Glass,” which relies heavily on transparency and translucency effects. These visual elements create a sense of depth by allowing you to see through windows and menus to the content behind them. While these effects are visually appealing, they demand extra work from your Mac’s graphics processor.

Processes like WindowServer and SystemUIServer, which manage your Mac’s graphical interface, have to work harder to render these complex visual layers. On some Macs, especially older models or those with less powerful graphics capabilities, this can lead to noticeable lag. You might see choppy animations when opening Mission Control, stuttering when pulling down menus, or delays when resizing windows.

You can improve interface responsiveness by reducing these visual demands. Disabling transparency is one of the most effective ways to do this. This setting replaces the translucent effect with a solid, opaque background, which is much easier for your Mac to draw.

To reduce transparency:

1. Open the Apple menu in the top-left corner of your screen.
2. Select System Settings.
3. Click on Accessibility in the sidebar.
4. Choose the Display section.
5. Turn on the toggle switch next to Reduce Transparency.

Similarly, the system’s animations, such as windows zooming into view or spaces sliding across the screen, can contribute to a feeling of sluggishness. The “Reduce Motion” setting replaces many of these animations with simple cross-fade transitions. This can make the system feel faster because you are not waiting for an animation to complete.

To reduce motion:

1. Open the Apple menu and go to System Settings.
2. Navigate to Accessibility and then click on Motion.
3. Turn on the toggle switch next to Reduce Motion.

After enabling these settings, interact with the Finder and open a few applications. You should feel an immediate improvement in the snappiness of the user interface. Windows and menus will appear more instantly, contributing to a faster overall experience.

Optimize Your Mac’s Storage

Your Mac’s performance is directly linked to the amount of free storage space available on its main drive. An operating system needs empty space to function correctly. It uses this space for various temporary tasks, including:

• Virtual Memory (Swap Files): When your Mac runs out of physical memory (RAM), it uses part of your storage drive as “virtual” memory. If the drive is nearly full, this process becomes extremely slow and can cause the entire system to grind to a halt.
• Cache Files: Applications and the operating system create temporary cache files to speed up operations. Without enough free space, they cannot create these files, which slows down performance.
• Temporary Files: Many applications create temporary files while you work. A full drive prevents this, which can cause apps to crash or behave unpredictably.

As a general rule, you should always aim to keep at least 15% of your total storage capacity free. Performance begins to degrade when free space drops below 10% and becomes a serious problem below 5%.

A common complaint with macOS Tahoe, as with previous versions, is the “System Data” category in storage management. This category can sometimes grow to an enormous size, consuming hundreds of gigabytes of space that is difficult to reclaim. To free up storage, focus on the files you can control.

Here are steps to free up disk space:

1. Use the Storage Management Tool: macOS includes a built-in tool to help you identify and delete large files. Go to System Settings > General > Storage. Here, you will see recommendations for optimizing space, such as moving files to iCloud, emptying the Trash automatically, and reviewing large documents.
2. Empty the Trash: Files you delete are moved to the Trash but continue to occupy space until you empty it. Right-click the Trash icon in the Dock and select Empty Trash.
3. Clear Browser Caches: Web browsers store a lot of data. In your browser’s settings, find the option to clear the cache, browsing history, and site data.
4. Delete Old iOS and iPadOS Backups: If you back up your iPhone or iPad to your Mac, old backups can consume a large amount of space. You can manage these in Finder by connecting your device and clicking “Manage Backups.”
5. Remove Unused Applications: Drag any applications you no longer use from the Applications folder to the Trash.
6. Find and Delete Large Files: Check your Downloads and Documents folders for large files you no longer need, such as old disk images (.dmg files) or zip archives.

Regularly managing your storage is one of the most important maintenance tasks you can perform to keep your Mac running smoothly.

Manage Applications and Processes

The applications you run can have a major impact on your Mac’s performance. Outdated, poorly optimized, or unnecessary applications running in the background can consume valuable system resources.

Update Your Applications

After a major macOS update, application developers release updates for their software. These updates ensure compatibility with the new operating system and often include performance optimizations. An old version of an app might not be designed to work efficiently with macOS Tahoe, leading to crashes, freezes, or general slowness.

• Mac App Store Apps: Open the App Store, click on your profile in the bottom-left corner, and then click “Update All.”
• Third-Party Apps: For apps downloaded from the internet, like Google Chrome or Microsoft Office, you typically update them from within the app itself. Look for a “Check for Updates” option in the app’s main menu or settings.

Review Login Items

Login items are applications and services that launch automatically every time you start your Mac. While some are necessary, many are not. Each program that opens at startup consumes memory and CPU cycles, slowing down the boot process and reducing the resources available for the applications you are actively using.

You can manage these items in System Settings:

1. Go to System Settings > General > Login Items.
2. Under the “Open at Login” section, you will see a list of applications that start with your Mac.
3. Select any application you do not need to have running immediately and click the minus (–) button to remove it. You can always open these apps manually when you need them.

Identify Resource-Hungry Processes

Sometimes, a single application or background process can misbehave and consume an unusually high amount of CPU power. This can happen even with updated apps. The Activity Monitor is your best tool for identifying these culprits.

1. Open Activity Monitor from your Utilities folder.
2. Click the CPU tab.
3. Click the “% CPU” column header to sort processes by their current processor usage.
4. If you see an application at the top of the list consistently using a high percentage of the CPU (e.g., over 80%), it may be the source of your slowdown.
5. Select the process and click the “X” button in the toolbar to quit it. If it is a critical system process, it will restart automatically. If it is an application, you can try relaunching it to see if the problem resolves.

Perform Basic System Maintenance

Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the most effective. Before diving into more complex troubleshooting, a few basic steps can resolve a wide range of performance issues.

Restart Your Mac

Restarting your computer is a time-tested troubleshooting step that remains effective today. A restart clears out your Mac’s active memory (RAM), quits all applications and background processes, and clears temporary caches that may have become corrupted. This gives your system a completely fresh start and can often resolve unexplained sluggishness, freezes, and other strange behavior.

Scan for Malware

While macOS is generally secure, it is not immune to malware and adware. Malicious software running in the background can consume system resources, slowing down your computer and compromising your privacy. If your Mac is suddenly slow and you have tried other solutions, it is wise to perform a malware scan. Use a reputable, well-known anti-malware application specifically designed for macOS to scan your system for any threats.

Consider Hardware Limitations

It is important to have realistic expectations about performance, especially if you have an older Mac. Apple designs new versions of macOS to take advantage of the latest hardware. While macOS Tahoe may be compatible with a Mac that is several years old, it may not run as smoothly as it does on a brand-new model.

The tips in this guide can help optimize performance on any compatible Mac. However, if you have an older machine with a mechanical hard drive (instead of an SSD), limited RAM (8GB or less), or an older processor, you may still find that the new operating system feels more demanding than previous versions. In such cases, managing your expectations and being diligent about keeping your system lean and optimized is the best approach.