MacOS27 Golden Gate Cause Lagging on M1 Pro

256 GB Storage (240 GB in use).

^^ This is the problem, right here. ^^

Runaway processes and low free storage space are common reasons for Macs to run slow / beachball. 

It is possible there are processes running in the background that are using significant resources. Check Activity Monitor, CPU tab (sort by % CPU) and Memory tab (sort by Memory) to see what's running hard.

Activity Monitor User Guide for Mac - Apple Support

Confirm that you have sufficient free space on your internal storage – based on your post, you DO NOT. The absolute minimum is ~20-25 GB free space, and as a rule of thumb you should aim to have 15-20% of your total internal storage as free space. Terminology is important here – free space is not the same thing as available space. The one that matters is Free space, but what macOS shows in most places is Available space. Available space includes both free space and ‘purgeable’ space, the latter comprises system caches, snapshots and other data that macOS can delete if it decides more free space is needed. However, there is no way the user can force those data to be purged.

The place to check how much Free space you have is in Disk Utility (in Applications > Utilities), by selecting the main container disk below the drive itself (you may need to select View menu > Show all devices to see it). For example, on my M4 MacBook Pro, the Storage settings pane and Get Info on the internal drive show 1.24 TB of Available space, whereas Disk Utility shows there is 1.15 TB of actual Free space, 90 GB less than ‘available’. Although 90 GB is a small fraction of my 2 TB internal storage, that would not be the case with 256 GB or 512 GB of internal storage.

Note that you can also see the Free space in the System Report (System Settings > General > About > System Report button, at the bottom > Storage). 

Some steps to take to safely free up space:

Free up storage space on Mac - Apple Support

Optimize storage space on your Mac - Apple Support

How to free up ‘System Data’ and other st… - Apple Community

For others experiencing the lag issue not due to low available storage, try this in a terminal:

killall cfprefsd

sudo killall cfprefsd

That service manages application preferences on MacOS. We have been seeing it consume larger than normal amounts of cpu, and when executing those commands, MacOS will immediately restart them. I did this about 90 mins ago and so far it has helped. No more lag and UI is silky smooth again. But it's only been 90 minutes, so we'll see.

I also don't doubt that there is some config or app specific to my company that could be causing this, and our Mac support folks are looking into that as well.

Doctor Zhivago wrote:

Yes I have a MacBook Air M1 with 256gb and 8gb memory. It was working 'normally' until the update to Golden Gate 27.01 recently.

My experience, a couple of years ago, with an MBA with 8 GB, was that I had to manage memory pressure very carefully, or it became painfully slow. It's why I traded it in after only a year.

Use Activity Monitor to keep an eye on Memory Pressure. Once it drops into yellow, you know you need to start closing down apps. Avoid having anything in login items. Only launch things when you actually need them. Don't keep lots and lots of tabs open in your browser. Avoid using Chrome or other Google/Alphabet applications (preferably remove them). Remove any anti-virus or "clean up" programs according to the developer's instructions. Restart the computer once a day. If I did all of that, things were fine. I just got tired of it after a while.

neuroanatomist's suggestion to post an etrecheck report here is also excellent. Someone may be able to spot something in your specific setup that can be tweaked.

ETA: I see you posted the report. The first thing I saw without even really scrolling is that your hard drive space is critically low. That's going to cause issues.

I'd pull up the Activity Monitor and watch Memory Pressure. 8GB of RAM is barely enough. I had an MBA with 8GB about three years ago. I ended up trading it in and getting an MBP with 16GB because I got tired of having to manage the memory.

If your memory pressure is in yellow, start closing out apps. If it hits red, restart. Make sure you don't have any apps set to launch automatically on log in.

Also, make sure that your version of Zoom is up to date. Sometimes, the automatic update fails on Zoom. You need to download the current version directly from the Zoom website.

Also remember that it can take several days for the Mac to complete background optimization after an update. Try leaving it open and connected to WiFi overnight. That should give it time to complete that while not competing with your attempts to work.

What stands out:

Low disk space - This computer is running critically low on free hard drive space.

Size: 245.11 GB

Free: 31.49 GB

You need to free up space on your Mac. Particularly with 8 GB of memory, your Mac will need to use virtual memory swap (space on your SSD)

Resource-hogging apps

Google Chrome and the many associated always-on extensions

NordVPN - crapware that is not doing what you think (commercial VPNs claim to hide your browsing activity from websites, and while that may be true those VPN providers just sell your browsing data to others)

With low free space and resource-hogging apps running, it's no surprise that your Mac is running slow.

ME3364 wrote:

This is legitimately an issue. I have an M1 Pro with 16GB of memory and never had a problem with this before macos 27. We have a thread going on at work (fortune 100 company) in our mac users channel and it is a common theme, everyone is experiencing it.

Please Apple, listen and do something. It is annoying and a productivity killer.

What is 'legitimately an issue'? The OP in this thread had filled up the Mac's internal drive, which is a recipe for problems and is certainly a legitimate issue.

It's highly unlikely that there is a systemic macOS issue causing lagging in Golden Gate. Minor bugs, yes. But a pervasive issue? There were over one million users on the public beta for two months, and 10-15 million users now running it. Personally, it's been fine for me on my personal Mac (an M4 Pro MBP). My work Mac (an M1 Pro MBP) is still on Tahoe.

If you and every Mac user at your Fortune 100 company is experiencing lagging on Golden Gate, then most likely there is some utility/extension you all have installed as part of the company overlay that is causing the issue due to incompatibility. When I was a Mac user at a Fortune 100 company, IT would not allow anyone to update to an x.0 version of any macOS. It typically wasn't until x.1 or sometimes x.2 that the update would be rolled out.

As for Apple, they are not here. “We” are users like you and have no power to implement any suggestions. Apple employees are generally precluded from even reading these forums, with the exception of moderators who only monitor for compliance with the T&C.

To have Apple consider your feedback, submit it here:

Feedback - macOS - Apple

Doctor Zhivago wrote:

Thanks for your comment. I appreciate what you've said, but please remember that the problems experienced have only happened since 'upgrading' to GG27.01 a few days ago and then GG27.02 today. In other words, it would appear to have more to do with the upgrade than the Mac.

Moreover, if you read the comments from other users with exactly the same computer as me, but much more free storage space, who are also experiencing painful slowness; concealment of Menu bars and traffic lights and other symptoms, how can it all be down to storage?

Millions of users are running macOS Golden Gate. A few dozen users are posting about these issues. What is the more likely source of the problem for those few dozen users – macOS that is running normally for millions of people, or those users' personal configurations/systems?

Consider that the macOS 27 (Golden Gate) developer beta was released on June 8, 2026, followed by the public beta on July 13, 2026, before the full software officially launched on September 14, 2026. That's three months of developer testing and two months of public testing, both across several iterative beta versions. And of course, plenty of testing internally before Apple released the first developer beta.

In general, MAJOR issues are going to be found and fixed before the full release. What is left that impacts the general public mainly falls into three categories:

• Identified bugs that were not of sufficient impact/priority to fix before full release
• New, unidentified bugs that are found by users
• Issues caused by incompatible software/extensions installed by the user on a prior version of macOS

After a major upgrade, the majority of issues fall into that last category. 

There were certainly bugs in 27.0, especially with Misson Control and Spaces. Those were fixed in 27.2.

"Painful slowness" is not a bug in macOS, it's a system issue with the affected Mac (3rd party software/extensions, lack of storage, or hardware problem).

trista255 wrote:

I’m having the same issue with 2021 M1 iMac. 8gb Ram. I still have plenty of storage over 80Gb. I’ve optimized everything i can. I’m using heavy chrome browser work for multitasking. Totally bogged down my system after golden gate update. Any ideas of a fix?

Chrome is a notorious resource hog on Macs. Installing it also installs multiple ‘helpers’ from Google that run in the background, and their purpose is not to help you but to help Google (keep in mind that Google’s primary source of revenue is using your data to drive targeted advertising). Even if you aren’t running the Chrome app, those system extensions are always running in the background. I’d recommend deleting Chrome and all related components.

https://chromeisbad.com

If you are looking for something other than Safari, consider Firefox or Brave (the latter is based on Chrome code but without the Google baggage).

I appreciate that people have diagnosed the OP with low available memory and that is likely a contributor but the OP said the issue was occurring after the update to GoldenGate and others are also saying the same thing. It is highly likely that in new OS versions there will be issues so can we not diminish that evidence, and instead seek to understand posters situations better.

I have plenty of memory and disk space - and have experienced distinct slow down and lag, especially around the UI since the upgrade. It seems to be an issue for a lot of people and so warrants some Apple investigation.

Doctor Zhivago wrote:

Please Apple (yes I know Apple isn't reading this) could you assess the impact of your updates on slightly older devices, before releasing and trying to convince everyone that what you release is "better" than what they already have?

When Apple releases an upgrade to macOS, the models that Apple states are supported are fully supported. I'd be very surprised if Apple hadn't tested the pre-release versions on every supported Mac, and with the developer and public beta versions there are literally millions of people using the new version before the public launch (it was close to 3 million for Golden Gate).

You can certainly believe that Apple is responsible for your Mac having issues on Golden Gate, but the reality is that if your Mac is running slow after the update, the issue is with your Mac and not macOS. There are various troubleshooting steps listed in this thread. Which of them have you tried, and what was the results?

It might help to download and run EtreCheck, written by a long-time forum member. The free version is fine. Post the full report using the Additional Text button. No personal information is revealed. 

Definitely, things take a few seconds to actually do. Even warning alerts are slow to pop up and the alert sound is delayed. It sometimes takes two or three clicks for it to register when you click on something. Like closing a window: Click... <nothing> click... <nothing> click... oh there it goes. If you don't hit it two or three times it won't work.

Also another thing, if you let the screen saver go and you're using Safari, when you come back all the tabs are blank, then they refresh which can be inconvenient as sometimes you are forced to log back into whatever website you were on.

This is legitimately an issue. I have an M1 Pro with 16GB of memory and never had a problem with this before macos 27. We have a thread going on at work (fortune 100 company) in our mac users channel and it is a common theme, everyone is experiencing it.

Please Apple, listen and do something. It is annoying and a productivity killer.