Safari running slow in Yosemite

Hi ...

Might be a cookies, cache, or extensions, issue.

From your Safari menu bar click Safari > Preferences then select the Privacy tab.

Click: Remove All Website Data

Then delete the cache.

Open a Finder window. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder

Type or copy paste the following

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db

Click Go then move the Cache.db file to the Trash.

Quit and relaunch Safari to test.

If that doesn't help, troubleshoot Safari extensions.

From the Safari menu bar click Safari > Preferences then select the Extensions tab. Turn that OFF, quit and relaunch Safari to test.

If that helped, turn one extension on then quit and relaunch Safari to test until you find the incompatible extension then click uninstall.

With similar symptoms, I tried deleting Safari plug-ins and extensions (I had none installed) and deleting the cache, resetting PRAM -- all the suggestions here and all to no avail. Then, what finally worked for me was removing the Dropbox app from my system. Once that was gone, Safari worked fine.

To remove, I had to quit the Dropbox app from the OSX menu bar (upper right corner), and then delete Dropbox from my Applications folder in Finder. I also deleted the DropboxHelperTools folder from /Library and removed the application settings. These instructions can be found on dropbox.com if you search for uninstalling Dropbox. I had a bit of trouble deleting the main Dropbox app, but I renamed it and then deleted it.

I then had to remove Dropbox from my user account Login items in System Preferences. That was it for me.

Anyway, if you've tried deleting plug-ins from Safari Preferences and you are still having a problem, try checking your Login items in System Preferences. One of those apps may be causing the conflict.

Luis_MercadoOct 23, 2014 10:59 AM

I post this hoping to help those users who, like me, are experiencing high CPU usage and massive memory leaking with OS X core services and apps, leading to slow performance and battery drain.

I've tried everything mentioned, but found the right combination of steps to follow. I've tried this with seven different Apple computers, including mine, and has worked well so far. I applied this method yesterday to give these process a 24 hour window to fail again, so far everything good.

First step: disconnect any external or secondary monitors, if any is present. The video memory allocation leak can also happen if you have a system with an integrated card, like Intel, with no external monitors attached.

Second step: Shut down your machine and enter Safe Mode (press shift once you turn on your computer again, more info below). Once you're there, fix your disk permissions.

Guide of how to access Safe Mode: OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?

Third step: From Safe Mode turn off your machine again and reset your System Management Controller (SMC). There are different methods, depending on machine, to do this. To know what method applies to yours read the following guide.

Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

Fourth step: Once your machine completes a full boot after resetting the SMC turn it off again and reset your PRAM (THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP, BUT THE PREVIOUS ONES ARE ESSENTIAL FOR THIS ONE TO WORK). The PRAM stores small bits of data that indicate our Apple computer how to interact with the devices connected to it, including monitors and video cards. It also affects software.

To reset it you should hold the OPTION, COMMAND, P and R keys in your keyboard immediately after turning on your machine again.You'll hear the start up chime, continue pressing the keys until the machine boots and the chime starts A SECOND TIME, then release. IF YOUR YOSEMITE INSTALLATION LOCKS UP AT A BLACK SCREEN AFTER THIS, DONT PANIC! It's normal, just turn off your computer and let it boot again.

More info about PRAM: OS X Mavericks: Reset your computer’s PRAM

Voila, reconnect your external displays and enjoy your system.

Message was edited by: Luis_Mercado

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Helpful Answers by Luis_Mercado, Adamanitos

For me, going to Preference, then Extensions and turning off VideoBox extension immediately solved the 5 second page load problem. No need to empty cache, no need to even restart Safari.

Wonderful. Pages load immediately. Thanks to the first few posts for giving me a direction to experiment with.

I had the same problem. After more than 6 technical support calls with Apple, reloading Yosemite once myself and once at the Genius Bar where they wiped my hard drive and returned my Macbook Air to factory settings, more calls and a second trip to the Genius Bar when nothing had made much of a difference, I thought maybe it was an isp problem. I did some speed tests (www.speedtest.net) and compared the results with my 2007 Macbook running Snow Leopard and another 2013 Macbook Air running Mavericks. Both computers passed with flying colors while my 2012 Macbook Air on Yosemite had a download speed of under 2 mbps (often under 1). I also tested in another location and isp with the same results. I bought and installed a new wireless ac router and was amazed at the results. Problem solved. There remains the question of why none of the Apple support people mentioned a possible router problem.

I don't know if this will help anyone but Safari for me was completely unusable. It would literally take a minute and a half to load after clicking on the Safari icon in the dock bar. I finally figured out that Safari "Preferences", "New windows opens with" was set for "Tabs for favorites". This must have happened after updating to Yosemite. So when I launch Safari, it was opening every single bookmark as a tab. I did see all the bookmarks listed across the top (where the tabs are) but thought that was the "Bookmark Bar". It wasn't. They were separate tabs for everything I had in bookmarks. I changed the preferences "New windows open with" to "Homepage" and now Safari launches as smooth as Firefox or Chrome. And doesn't swill an entire 1.5G of memory when launched. It opened so many tabs when it started, and swilling so much memory, that everything mouse click would take forever. Including closing Safari when I gave up on trying to use it. I don't know if this has already been mentioned yet or if this was unique to me. But it solved all my Safari performance problems so I thought I would share in the hopes it will help someone.

Sorry: The steps I was referring to were as follows:

From your Safari menu bar click Safari > Preferences then select the Privacy tab.

Click: Remove All Website Data

Then delete the cache.

Open a Finder window. From the Finder menu bar click Go > Go to Folder

Type or copy paste the following

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db

Click Go then move the Cache.db file to the Trash.

Quit and relaunch Safari to test.

If that doesn't help, troubleshoot Safari extensions.

From the Safari menu bar click Safari > Preferences then select the Extensions tab. Turn that OFF, quit and relaunch Safari to test.

If that helped, turn one extension on then quit and relaunch Safari to test until you find the incompatible extension then click uninstall.

A bit late, but I had the same problem. Safari used multiple gigs of ram. After deleting the website data it was ok for a couple of hours but the problem returned fast.

On another forum I found someone who mentioned Adblock as the problem. I deleted Adblock and the prob was gone. Now I use Ublock which doesn't use much Ram/Cpu

Hi,

After trawling all of these "fixes" for laggy Safari (and graphics in general on Yosemite) for my 2014 MBPR, I accidentally discovered the real fix, for me at least.

I have FileVault 2 on, usually, always have. I decided to disable it (and have it decrypt the SSD), just for sh!ts 'n' giggles.

Safari is now instantaneous, just like Chrome, and graphics around the system are generally snappier than with FV2 enabled.

I now have created a disk image (dmg) which is encrypted separately, so anything personal can be kept in that, and I'm not too fussed the whole system isn't encrypted now, as it's far more responsive, even on a system as fast as this.

So try disabling FV2, you can always enable it again afterwards if it doesn't fix it for you, but the difference for me is remarkable, and is definitely thee fix for my laggy Safari.

Spent ages on this today both with my broadband provider and for the last 2 hours with Apple Support. Did all the various resetting etc of the Pram, SMC, deleted Cache etc, started in safe mode, umpteen restarts. I was getting download speeds of 0-2mb/s v 43 on my wife's mbp with Mavericks.

The final solution the Apple guy gave me to try was to create a new wifi location which we just left as untitled. Once we done this I was flying again. Worth a try for anyone still having problems.

I clicked off Safari in iCloud Drive, and now Safari is working for me again. It was completely unusable for me before whenever it went to sleep. Now it works (though still a little slower than I think it should be, but at least it hasn't crippled me completely).

Seems silly to have to disable iCloud Drive for Safari, but I'll need to keep it off until Apple provides a fix for this. Still can't believe it's taking this long...

Same problem. Simple fix if like me you just want Safari to operate essentially as it did before.

I've never commented before. Consider my computer skills inferior to an 8 year-old, and was shocked to find my hunch actually worked.

The problem seems to lie in the operating system trying to integrate every aspect of its functionality and content with every type of search conducted in either Safari or Spotlight which is now a jumble at best (I'm back to searching in the finder) and seems to snack on email content.

So, in Safari, open preferences.

Select the Search Icon

From the pulldown I have selected google as my search engine.

I have selected Include Search Engine Suggestions which are often useful and occasionally comical.

Do not select any of the smart search settings.

It seems to send Safari on a wide ranging search of the African Savannah to load a simple webpage because it looks everywhere else first before it loads. If after all that hunting about it thinks it might have the page or a piece of it somewhere local then it gets a headache instead of just looking for it on the web in the first place.

I have no idea what smart search is or why I would want to search spotlight on my browser or the web from spotlight but apparently it's so smart it's "too smart for its own good." Huh, maybe artificial intelligence is already here. Yosemite has a sense of irony.

Take a bow, or should I say curtsey, Ms. Samit: I tried two [Open & Google] DNS changes to no avail. In the end my slow Safari was being cased by an extension or extensions.

The only extension I left running is 1Password and it appears to be compatible ... I 86ed all the others and, Presto!, Safari back to normal speed.

There is a marked improvement with Safari after changing the default search engine to Bing. Thank you Carolyn for suggesting this! Whether this resolves the other issues I have encountered of Safari being unable to reconnect to the Internet after the Mac sleeps for a while is to be seen. While I'm not using Safari at this point (I switched to Chrome as my default browser), some apps (like Mail) are still using Safari for showing image content and stops working after the Mac sleeps for a few hours. Again, the only solution that I have found for this post-sleep Safari lockup is to reboot.

My Safari was running at 200% CPU. I did everything above but it didn't help.

Then I disabled Javascript and WebGL and restarted Safari. This helped.

I could even enable both again and restart Safari. Safari now runs at below 5%.