Message app slow and lags on Big Sur

I found this and it worked for me.

Sonia Huelsenbeck says

APRIL 3, 2019 AT 9:53 PM

After trying all the suggested fixes, I contacted Apple. They had me do the following and it worked:

Sign out of Messages on the MacBook. We can do that by opening Messages, then going to the top left corner of the screen and click messages -> iMessages. We should be able to sign out from there .

Up next we’ll go on the iPhone to Settings -> Messages, turn off iMessage, restart the iPhone, then turn iMessage back on.

Go back on the MacBook and get signed back into the Messages app. 

Go on the iPhone to Settings -> Messages -> Text Message Forwarding. We should be able to flip a switch for the Mac to allow us to send SMS and MMS messages from the MacBook, and hopefully sort out the last of it.

Enter the code that pops up on your screen.

I had the same problem but only on one Mac. I have Big Sur installed on a MacBook Air, a MacBook Pro, a Mini, and an iMac, and it was only running slow on the Mini. It would also freeze and needed to be forced to quit. It's a 2014 i7 3 GHz 16 GB RAM Intel Iris 1536 MB. Everything else works fine, so I checked all settings and found one different. I set it the same as the other Macs, and Messages works absolutely fine now. That one setting was in Accessibility > Display > Cursor > Cursor Size. It was set on the 4th (middle) size. I reduced it to the smallest size even though the other Macs are on the second setting. As I said, works perfectly now.

This worked for me.

November 2018 Mac Book Air

Productivity-killing lag when typing in Messages after installing BigSur.

My mouse cursor size was already set to the smallest setting. I enlarged by one degree, and PRESTO! No more lag in Messsages. Can't believe this worked.

I see many posting that it is a temporary fix and the lag returns in a few days, or so.

I'm happy to have to toggle my mouse size every few days till a proper fix comes along. Less than ideal, to be sure. But at least I can get work done now.

Thanks Siingularitylxc,

Rebooting into safe mode and rebooting again was one of the first things I tried. There's a reason why we reboot first, but changing my Accessibility settings appears to have been a permanent fix. Messages hasn't frozen on me again. Hope that helps.

Reboot only fixes it temporarily. I did that and after few days it came back. I even upgraded fusion drive to a super fast SSD 2T in my 2017 iMac 27 as I thought this new Mac OS Big Sur requires faster disk speeds but the problem is still there. Messages are laggy as I was working on 15 years old machine.

I agree. The fix works, but the problem comes back. It appears to be a sync problem across platforms. With a Mini, an iMac, a MacBook Air, an iPad Pro, and iPhone 11Max next to each other a message doesn’t appear on all screens for several minutes at times. Sometimes it works extremely well. I go through the suggested fix, and the results are immediately obvious, but then it comes back within a day or two.

Mine continues to need the reset procedure as described by Sonia. It works fine if I leave the computer awake, but after it has been asleep, I need to open apps gradually. I had to force quit my mail app last night, and I get the spinning wheel when I opened Messages today.

That's what I'm experiencing. The Messages app itself is working fine but there is a several second lag between the time I click the Dock icon and the window finally opens. I did not have any success with the above tip that involved using an iPhone/signing out/etc.

Tried this after everything else. It worked right away and after about 3 days went back to terrible lag. The MacOS app is unusable. Really need a solution here and it looks like there are many with the same issue. Apple Tech Reps, are you out there? C'mon Man!

ClayJBook wrote:

This worked for me.

November 2018 Mac Book Air

Productivity-killing lag when typing in Messages after installing BigSur.

My mouse cursor size was already set to the smallest setting. I enlarged by one degree, and PRESTO! No more lag in Messsages. Can't believe this worked.

I see many posting that it is a temporary fix and the lag returns in a few days, or so.

I'm happy to have to toggle my mouse size every few days till a proper fix comes along. Less than ideal, to be sure. But at least I can get work done now.

Thanks Siingularitylxc,

This is so bizarre tho, Why the heck Mouse cursor size would have impact iMessage performance ? It like, smaller/bigger headlight will impact how fast you car can go ?

Doesn't make any sense to me, Apple should coming and take a look at it.

yup, I'm experiencing the same issue. Messages works fine but making it active when the app is minimized takes about three seconds.

I did not do a Big Sur upgrade, I completed a fresh install on an iMac Pro.

Very annoying!

I finally got a chance to work with Apple Support on this issue and they escalated my case up since I spoke to Support about this in September. We are trying to figure out if there is 3rd Party app that is causing this issue. If you have this issue, please reply if you have any of the following 3rd party applications to try to figure out if there is a common denominator:

Spark

Fantastical

Microsoft Office Apps (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, etc.)

WhatsApp (wish Messages worked as well)

PDF Expert

EZCCs

Ulysses

iMazing Profile Editor (or other apps by DigiDNA)

Kiwi for Gmail

Speedtest

Mactracker

OneDrive

Dropbox

Speedtest

There are enough people having a problem with this lag that we may be able to narrow this down by app.

I have Wha'sApp

This is very annoying indeed. The way I handle it is by re booting on "Safe" mode for a little while and then go back to the normal reboot and it takes care of the issue but it comes back a few days later.

I had the same problem. Sometimes seconds between pressing a key in iMessage and the character appearing. I went into System Preferences -> Accessibility and made sure I had the lag time for a key press set to minimum. It seems to have fixed the problem ... for now, at least.

I've tried everything suggested and nothing works. The safe mode solution works for maybe a couple of days and then comes back. Now it's getting worse where even opening the text on my computer gets the wheel going and deleting text is almost impossible. Is someone doing something about this?

I got the email about other app contributing to the problem. The only other app that I have from the ones listed is What'sApp.

Thanks