The animation for switching spaces is significantly slower at higher screen refresh rates compared to 60Hz. The issue affects both external displays and the built-in display of the 2024 MacBook Pro with ProMotion enabled. Even enabling "Reduce motion" doesn’t help - the animation changes, but remains equally slow.
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.4
Based on my observations, the best current option is to switch to the desired app in another Space using cmd + tab. In that case, macOS uses a different, much faster animation. Apple, please set this same animation for switching Spaces.
Denan63 wrote:
The animation for switching spaces is significantly slower at higher screen refresh rates compared to 60Hz. The issue affects both external displays and the built-in display of the 2024 MacBook Pro with ProMotion enabled. Even enabling "Reduce motion" doesn’t help - the animation changes, but remains equally slow.
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.4
Verify your software is up to date…
The current stable release of Sequoia including bug fixes, security updates is macOS 15.4.1
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
Keep your Mac up to date - Apple Support
To trouble shoot further you can:
—A SafeBoot Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support will sort many anomalies
Does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled temporarily.
Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.
This test will tell you if third party interference; most extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.
—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support
This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account.
***wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries— connect the charging cable, this will make the wired keyboard successful Safe Boot your Mac.
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
no insight or resolve-
To be proactive you can file a bug report / submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple
Unfortunately, none of the above methods help. Even in safe boot mode, the problem still occurs, and the only thing that works is disabling ProMotion. I will open a bug report, but I’m leaving this thread open in case someone has found a solution to this issue. If necessary, I’m even willing to use third-party software. (I'm using Sequoia 15.4.1, but I also tested this on an older Mac with macOS Monterey 12.7.6, and the same problem occurs there as well.)
Denan63 wrote:
I’ve noticed that the problem appears when I make a gentle three-finger swipe on the touchpad or use a keyboard shortcut - then the animation is extended by a “slowdown” effect. But when I swipe quickly across the entire touchpad surface, the animation skips this “slowdown.”
On 60Hz, however, the animation is always fast regardless of how I switch Spaces.
make a change to your Trackpad settings — compare "4 finger swipe" and compare your results.
Avoiding any conflict between gestures...
It’s definitely not caused by any third-party software. I don’t have anything running in the background, no external drivers installed, and the issue occurs even in Safe Boot. The MacBook is only 10 days old, so I haven’t had a chance to install much yet. However, I’ve noticed that the problem appears when I make a gentle three-finger swipe on the touchpad or use a keyboard shortcut - then the animation is extended by a “slowdown” effect. But when I swipe quickly across the entire touchpad surface, the animation skips this “slowdown.” On 60Hz, however, the animation is always fast regardless of how I switch Spaces.
Thank for additional details. I have only tried using Control-left or -right. I will see if the issue is reproducible when switching in other ways, but I won’t be able to do it until later today, as I’m away from my mac.
I recorded a video showing exactly what the problem looks like. While recording, I was only using Control-right.
Thank you for the suggestion. I tested this option, but unfortunately
it’s still the same. And as I mentioned, the problem affects both the
trackpad and the Control-left/right shortcut.
I don't know why this is happening to you, but on my MacBook Pro (M4 Pro) there is no discernible difference in the animation speed with either ProMotion or 60 Hz selected.
I don't have any high frequency external displays to test.
Could there be an interference by some third party software like DisplayLink (if that is being used)?
Switching spaces animation is very slow on high refresh rate screens
