Mac Running Slow or Showing the Spinning Beachball? How to Speed It Up
Your Mac feels sluggish, apps take a long time to open, or you keep seeing the spinning rainbow wheel (the “beachball”).
Why: A slow Mac usually comes down to something using more than its share of the processor or memory, too little free disk space, or too many apps and startup items running at once. The trick is to find the specific cause with Activity Monitor rather than guessing.
Fix 1: Find the culprit in Activity Monitor
Activity Monitor shows exactly which app or process is making the heaviest demand on your Mac.
- Open Activity Monitor (in Applications > Utilities, or search with Spotlight, ⌘ + Space).
- Click the CPU tab and click the % CPU column header to sort. If one app sits near the top constantly, it’s slowing things down.
- Click the Memory tab and check the Memory Pressure graph at the bottom. Green is healthy; yellow or red means your Mac is straining for memory.
- To stop a problem app, select it, click the Stop button (the octagon with an ×) in the upper-left corner, and choose Quit.
Fix 2: Quit apps you aren’t using
Each open app uses memory, and an app that isn’t compatible with your Mac can drag everything down.
- Quit apps you’re not actively using — especially heavy ones like browsers with many tabs, video editors, or virtual machines.
- If a specific app shows a huge memory or CPU demand every time, check the developer’s documentation to confirm it’s compatible with your Mac and macOS version.
- Restart your Mac. A restart clears temporary slowdowns and frees up memory that apps didn’t release.
Fix 3: Free up startup disk space
When your startup disk gets close to full, macOS has no working room and everything slows down.
- Open Apple menu > System Settings > General > Storage to see what’s using space.
- Move large files to an external drive and empty the Trash, then delete files you no longer need.
- For a full walkthrough, see free up space when your Mac’s startup disk is full.
Fix 4: Reduce login and background items
Apps that launch at login keep running in the background and compete for resources from the moment you start up.
- Open Apple menu > System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions.
- Under Open at Login, select anything you don’t need and click the – (Remove) button.
- Under Allow in the Background, turn off background activity for apps you don’t need running constantly.
See manage login items and background apps on Mac for the full steps.
FAQ
The beachball appears only in one app. That points to that specific app rather than your whole Mac — see if an app keeps crashing or won’t respond.
Does keeping macOS updated help? Yes. Updates include performance and bug fixes, so install the latest version under System Settings > General > Software Update.
My Mac still feels slow after all this. Use Disk Utility to run First Aid on your startup disk to rule out disk errors, and confirm your apps are compatible with your Mac’s processor and macOS version.
Sources: Apple Support — If your Mac runs slowly · Apple Support — Quit an app or process in Activity Monitor on Mac