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

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.

if possible can someone share the steps to reinstall the wonderful Sequoia and what’s necessary after the install is complete?

If you don't have a backup made prior to installing Tahoe, it is much more difficult. You will need to manually copy all of your data to an external drive and then manually copy it back into reinstalled Mac. If you have stuff in iCloud Drive, you would not need to back that up, just sign back into your Apple Account. Same for any services you have linked to iCloud like iCloud Photos, Music, Contacts, Mail, etc. If you have any of that type of content not synchronized with iCloud, you must export it out of the host application and then import it back into those programs. For Photos, Music, and anything else that stores additional metadata, you will lose all of the metadata you entered (like keywords, location info, faces, song/album info, etc).

Most macOS these days updates the firmware on the Mac for the new OS. I don't think reinstalling an old OS will revert the firmware, so this all may not work. I just don't know how that is handled.

1. Download Sequoia and create a Bootable USB Installer from that download. There are instructions on how to get an older macOS version in that linked article. When you format your USB stick for the installer, just name the volume, "My Volume." That way, there is no need to alter the command, you can just copy and paste the command from that article.
2. Start up from the Bootable USB Installer. There are instruction in the above linked article on how to do that.
3. Once booted into the USB Installer, open Disk Utility. Erase your startup drive. When booted into the USB Installer, you are in Recovery—do not restart into Recovery on your Mac or into Internet Recovery. You can name the new volume anything you want. "Macintosh HD" is the factory default name.
4. Once erased, quit Disk Utility and choose Install macOS. Follow the instructions and install on the volume you created when you erased the drive.
5. When your Mac restarts into macOS Sequoia Setup Assistant, choose to Migrate from a Time Machine backup. If you had inherited your backup into Tahoe, when you select the backup you will need to expand the list of backup sets and choose the date/time you last backed up Sequoia. If you select a backup that was made with Tahoe, it will tell you that you must reinstall macOS to Tahoe. Back up and choose an earlier backup set.

If you have a non-Time Machine backup, you may still be able to Migrate from that backup, but I don't know how to do that. Contact your Backup provider for instructions.

The good news is that based on the experience of numerous people in a prior version of this thread, In most if not all cases the problem is related to Spotlight, and making Spotlight reindex generally cleared things up. The most commonly suggested method was to delete all files under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ and restart your Mac. 

I my case, it was even apparently simpler than that. after several days of sluggishness and in frustration with the loss of the option to group apps in the Spotlight version of app launcher, I went to System setting | Spotlight. No custom groups, but while I was there I deleted the Search History, and toggled the Results from clipboard on, quit Systems Settings and then went back in and toggled them off again. I’m not sure what precisesly triggerd things, but after rebooting the next day, the sluggishness was gone.

PS : I suggest that you report your problem to tech support. Contrary to the renaming of the thread the proble also occured with later model Apple silicon models such as mine. But you do not have to suffer from the sluggishnes after upgrade, or roll back the OS, or delete the host of usual suspet apps, etc.

If sever lag is your problem this solution has worked for everyone else

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 don't think that TimeMachine is the problem. I also had to fix a MacBook Pro that was very slow.

The first thing I recognized was the fact, that the TimeMachine Backup always changed its state to "Time Machine Backup Delayed" even after manually starting TimeMachine and even after erasing the TimeMachine disc.

I found some information about TimeMachine Problems and "indexing".

So even Spotlight worked fine on this MacBook I tried the tip

deleting everything under ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/

Indexing startet after that without any other doings and after indexing was finished also TimeMachine started to work again with no further efforts.

Just my 5 cents

Jürgen

hu-ro wrote:

Same here.

Few months-old Macbook Pro, just upgraded to Tahoe, was working great before doing that.

M4 Pro, 48 GB Memory, 2TB of memory (1.4TB still unused)

Constant lag and freezing with typing, mouse movements, opening windows.

Tried a few fixes suggested (shutting off things); nothing has helped.

Performance issues usually have a direct correlation to the work being done by third party apps.....some of which are constantly running in the background, especially anti-virus apps, cleaning/optimizer apps, and third party security software. Another reason can be due to compatibility issues with third party apps, so make sure they are all completely up to date.

Sometimes performance issues can be due to externally connected devices, so try disconnecting all external devices to see if that makes any difference. Sometimes there may even be a compatibility issue between two external devices.

Run the third party app EtreCheck and post the full report here. It would be best if you started a new thread because it is hard to help multiple people in a single thread since each case may have a completely different cause for the problem. Having your own thread will allow us the best ability to help resolve your laptop's problems.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

Also, make sure you have updated to the most recent version which at this time is macOS 26.2. I know that 26.2 has improved the releasing of memory & storage when things get a bit tight with either one. I would have problems with "application out of memory" errors which required a complete reboot to "fix", but I haven't had that problem since the latest update. I never experienced any actual performance issues with Tahoe otherwise and that wasn't really a performance issue, just a sudden full pausing of apps (done intentionally by macOS).

I'm thinking this must be affecting a lot of people, so I hope Apple is working on solutions.

Doubtful on both counts. You would need to have support cases open with Apple for them to even consider doing anything....assuming they determine that macOS is the cause. You can also provide Apple with product feedback, but doubtful it will do much since the issue is not specific enough for a fix:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

The majority of issues will be due to third party software and issues with third party software are the sole responsibility of the third party developers assuming you can figure out which app(s) is causing the problem which is why I suggest running EtreCheck & posting the report in a new thread so your issue gets the attention it deserves.

Trying to keep it positivel

That is always good to do, although it can be challenging at times. I wish you well.

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.

Am having the same problem with Tahoe freezing up & getting spinning beach balls incessantly.

A few observations:

• Ran fine under Sequoia - all this became a problem under 26 - Tahoe
• Tahoe 26.4 started out as bad as others, but then updating Pages, Numbers & Keynote - the apps I use most, made it seem normal.
• 26.5.0 and .1 - again terrible availability problems
• Wiping my MacBook Air, M2, 8GB RAM & reinstalling to 26.5.1 made it run like new but in a few days same problems reappeared
• Clearing out ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ made it run like new but in a few days same problems reappeared. This last work around is by far the best and guess am stuck with it until Apple fixes this indexing problem.

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.

Update to 26.2 didn't help apps I use still become unusable from time to time.

This helped. It seems like indexing screws up everything.

Turn off indexing everywhere:

sudo mdutil -a -i off

Erase all Spotlight indexes:

sudo mdutil -Ea

Clear per-user Core Spotlight metadata:

rm -rf ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/*

Restart the Core Spotlight daemon:

killall -9 corespotlightd

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>

@John Galt forgot to specifically mention to uninstall BitDefender as well, although it is implied from the rest of their post with the reference to Anti-Virus software. These types of apps usually cause more problems than they solve because they interfere with the normal operations of macOS.

I only recall seeing one reference to CMM/macpaw which either means you already tried to uninstall that software, but it left some bits behind, or you are using one of their other more limited apps. It is fairly common to see CMM not completely uninstall itself.

Once I see these types of apps, I end up only skimming the EtreCheck reports since it is impossible to assist until those apps are completely uninstalled.

If you continue to have issues, then please start your own new thread as suggested by @John Galt & include a new EtreCheck report after uninstalling CMM & BitDefender so your issue can get the attention it deserves.

And thanks for supplying the EtreCheck report. Always a good step when trying to troubleshoot a problem.

Deleting all files in ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight/ worked for me as well.

This may not be the main focus of this thread, but there is something else I think is important to mention in the context of MacOS 26 and Xcode 26. In particular, I realized that a combination of MacOS 26.2 with Xcode 26.2 makes the Xcode almost unusable: build that used to take several seconds may now take up to 10 minutes.

I found that this issue is caused by Spotlight indexing. My issue was gone after I excluded the following location from Spotlight indexing:

/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator

It appears that Spotlight starts indexing every iOS image once it is mounted by the Simulator, which is mounted to "/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Volumes/", and apparently it never succeeds or takes forever.

Would you be willing to try something (I imagine you would 😉) and see what effect it has?

I'm not suggesting this is a long-term fix. More just a curiosity at this point. Would you try setting your power settings to "High Power" for a bit and see how it goes?

# Set high power mode
sudo pmset -a powermode 2

Double-check the settings stuck:

❯ pmset -g custom | grep -B2 -E 'powermode'
Battery Power:
 Sleep On Power Button 1
 powermode            2
--
AC Power:
 Sleep On Power Button 1
 powermode            2

You can revert at any point with the following:

sudo pmset -a powermode 0   # Back to Automatic

This can also be toggled via the UI in System Settings -> Battery -> Energy Mode.