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.

[UPDATE]

Thanks to all for the feedback! Actually, I got a little bit "tricked" by the Mac storage itself. Yesterday, it was showing 240 GB in use out of 256 GB. Today, I noticed that, actually, it was using 254 GB, but was not registering it visually yesterday. I did some cleaning of system data and unnecessary apps and brought it down to 215 GB as of now. I tested it, and all works great right now.

Thanks all!

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.

I could not visit this discussion for a long time. Actually, what happened afterwards with my 8 GB M1 Pro laptop was that it still kept getting slower and slower. I had to downgrade it to Tahoe. Now, it works totally fine with no issues. Overall, it was very unfortunate experience with MacOS 27.0 for me.

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.

Hi - mine was worse until the update to GG 27.2, which I now have.

Also I listened to what some people were saying about available memory and found that I had loads of website tabs open, so I cleaned that up and also quit some apps that were open that I hadn't used in a while. But I still have only 29GB available.

My experience since doing these things and getting the 27.2 update has been much better.

There is still some lag, but I can no longer say that the GG update has ruined my workflow, as it did when I was on 27.1.

I would experiment a bit and also look at what you have open like I did, closing everything that is unnecessary - but make sure you have the 27.2 version of GG.

All in all, I would say that Apple should be a little more concerned with loyal users who might have been disadvantaged by this update, rather than leaving us to trial and error.

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.

I've recently updated to GG and from my perspective it's an absolute horror..I own a M3 Max and I use Logic Pro a lot. Before GG I had no issues or lagging while opening VST Plugins or navigating through them.Since GG , at every 10-15 seconds while trying to click on a random button ( VST or Logic) , it absolutely freezes the plugin or UI. At first I thought my MX Master is the cause , but once I figured it out that it's not, I felt so frustrated that my workflow was completely killed by this issues.It feels like at every 15 seconds it forces me to quit the app and comeback. LIke it is literally gone and not able to work. Rolling back to Tahoe or Sequoia seems the logic option but , installing 4 TB of software afterwards is something that requires too much time and patience and I am not willing to do that just because of whatever the problem is causing this :)) . Any thoughts ??

++++++

M1 pro 32 gigs of ram 200+ free gigs of storage. mac os 27 feels pretty laggy. Animations, apps loading. Previous mac os version were better. All this stupid Siri things just disabled, its useless.

Another mac still on sequoia and its the best experience =) It feel svery smooth.

APPLE PLEASE fix yourself. The quality of the software is very bad for the last couple years...

desyak wrote:

APPLE PLEASE fix yourself. The quality of the software is very bad for the last couple years...

Apple doesn't read here in this user-to-user forum for feedback or suggestions. You can, however, let them know your thoughts here:

Product Feedback - Apple

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.

I have seen so many comments in the last few days, with people suffering the same as me: the screen incredibly slow to reveal the top Menu (both right and left) above each app; incredibly slow to reveal the close/minimise buttons on an app or in functions within an app; slow to swipe between full screen apps; slow with things like volume control etc.

I today downloaded the 27.02 update and whilst it has made things a little better, it is still rather laggy for most things.

I do sometimes feel almost as though Apple gets "impatient" with customers who have devices that are 4 to 5 years old, or older, almost as if they want to make us compelled to upgrade to a new machine, so they can keep on making money out of us. I know - it's a cynical view and possibly conspiratorial, but......for the price we pay and the loyalty many of us show, we deserve to be looked after for a bit longer, in my view. The fact is that my M1 is still a very good computer, for what I need. I fully intend to upgrade to a M5 or M6 Air (when it comes out), 15" screen, with 4 times the storage and a 24gb memory. But I am not ready to do that yet - and I really need this machine to work properly!

This particular update has really affected the last few days of my working life very negatively - everything has taken so long to do, during a period in which I have been busier than I have been for several months. I have been used to working on a machine which responds at nearly the speed that I think; but suddenly everything feels like it has gone back to the 1990s. This is the kind of experience which can make some loyal customers question their loyalty, which is not a good thing.

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?

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?

Thanks, but most of the folks in our channel are software engineers and have checked off all the basics. I read the thread and the folks I have talked to have well over a half gig of free space (most machines are deployed with 1TB SSD), myself included, so disk space isn't the issue.

I'm glad your M4 Pro works. It seems that most having the issue are on older hardware (M1, but have had people report it using M2 and M3 hardware as well).

Thanks for the tip on Apple not monitoring this.....this will be my last post in this thread. My point in posting was hoping that they would see this and do something, but that isn't the case so will cease and desist. However, I question why Apple would not want to monitor user feedback or would block support or most importantly, their product managers, from reviewing valuable feedback from their customers.

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?

Thanks, I will review all of your suggestions.

But I would reiterate that I was not having any of the reported problems a week ago....when I was still using OS Tahoe. It's only since 'upgrading' to GG that I have had the slowness and all the other things that are being widely reported by a number of users all over social media. Many of those users have much more free storage space than I do.....

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?

There is a likelihood that it's not all down to one thing. That was just the first thing I saw in the limited time I had to review it. The fact that I had what sounds like the same problem three years ago is something that tells you it may not all be related to the upgrade.

Really, you have two options. One, you can decide it's the upgrade and live with the issue or two, you can consider that other factors may be involved and troubleshoot. It's possible you may at least be able to ameliorate the situation. I would encourage the latter course, but I can certainly understand the former.

trista255 wrote:

<Etre Check Report.log>

I have attached my EtreCheck Report in the additional text. Would someone be able to review it for potential issues and how to resolve. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I suggest you start your own thread. Use a subject line that says what your problem is.

I didn't even consider the storage space... Excellent advice.

Really glad to hear you've got it working.

I have attached my EtreCheck Report in the additional text. Would someone be able to review it for potential issues and how to resolve. Any help would be greatly appreciated.