The Messages app (which you send and receive iMessages with) becomes very slow and unresponsive after upgrading to Big Sur. Other apps seem to be performing fine. Do anyone else have this problem? Will it be fixed in a future release?
MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 11.0
I found this and it worked for me.
Sonia Huelsenbeck says
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 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.
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 did also notice Messages using over 1GB of memory, bringing up from a minimized state takes 4-5 seconds.
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!
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'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
I jiggered around with the size a couple of weeks ago and things seemed to get better for awhile. I am now back to a sloooow response time as if it is hung in a spell checker or something. I think there is some kind of bug in Message.
This gave me some relief - It's now pulling up names more quickly when I add a name to the To: field in a new message, and when I click on a particular conversation, it does load faster, but scrolling is still painfully awkward and catchy/laggy. I also tried the cursor trick (wth?!) and it didn't help at all, maybe because my cursor was already at the smallest size. Thank you for posting this! Even this partial fix will help a lot.
I hope you're on this thread, Apple folks! It took me quite a bit of time to go through this process with my home iMac, work Mac, and iPad. 😑 Please get us a bug fix! Texting is an important part of my work communication, and for many others, I'm sure.
This how-to-solve article you reference is nothing but a potpourri of possible fixes that are discussed in this thread. Apple needs to come up with a definitive fix in the form of a software patch. This collection of fixes don’t pinpoint the problem and are all just temporary work-arounds.
Did this actually fix the problem? Or was it a temporary fix?
THANK YOU!!! I changed that one setting, and the LAG whilst typing disappeared!
Very very helpful I just followed the steps you laid out and things are working great now. Thank you for saving me an obnoxious phone call.
Very Helpful! I had the same issue and this has fixed it so far, thankyou!
I followed all the directions again, and again, this is only a brief fix. This is so frustrating.
Message app slow and lags on Big Sur
