Several apps freezing in macOS

As Owl-53 already pointed out, you absolutely need more space.

The 30-ish GB free is waaaaay too low, and even if the system were to release the additional 70-ish GB and make the "available" 100GB actually free, that would still be only about 10% of your drive. The common recommendation is to have at least 15-20% free on a system drive.

In addition, it is clear that this system has been upgraded in place for several years, and across different macs.

You have stuff that has been deprecated or abandoned years ago, like Soundflower. It has not worked in several iterations of macOS (maybe since Catalina or so).

You have stuff from avast. You should never install any third party "antivirus", "cleaners", or "optimizers". They're scams, decrease system performance and work against system security.

You have surfshark. Unless used to create a tunnel, as instructed, to connect to your work or school network, vpn actually decrease security. See Public VPN are anything but private

You also have Chrome and its background "updating" processes, which run all the time and syphon your precious data...

Apart from what has already been suggested by both my colleague and self

1 -  Surfshark. TransparentProxy - version 4.23.1 (App Store - installed 2025-11-11)

2 -  com.avast.hub.xpc.plist (AVAST Software a.s. - installed 2024-12-13)

Avast AntiVirus

FTC Order Will Ban Avast from Selling Browsing Data for Advertising Purposes, Require It to Pay $16.5 Million Over Charges the Firm Sold Browsing Data After Claiming Its Products Would Block Online Tracking 

FTC says despite its promises to protect consumers from online tracking, Avast sold consumers' browsing data to third parties

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/02/ftc-order-will-ban-avast-selling-browsing-data-advertising-purposes-require-it-pay-165-million-over

Once this types of software are installed and embedded into the computer 

Start Over from Scratch 

Heavy Handed ?  - Yes 

Effective in removing the AV Software  ? - Yes 

You can spend hours or days hunting down all the bits and pieces of this software and never really get it all off the computer

For Apple Silicon computer >> Use Disk Utility to erase a Mac with Apple silicon.

Always make a Time Machine Backup  before  proceeding 

Emphasis on User Account Only

If going this route - I suggest Not using Startup Assist to migrate everything back.

This will probably Re-Introduce the same useless software back into the Operating System . 

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

As Owl-53 already pointed out, you absolutely need more space.

The 30-ish GB free is waaaaay too low, and even if the system were to release the additional 70-ish GB and make the "available" 100GB actually free, that would still be only about 10% of your drive. The common recommendation is to have at least 15-20% free on a system drive.

In addition, it is clear that this system has been upgraded in place for several years, and across different macs.

You have stuff that has been deprecated or abandoned years ago, like Soundflower. It has not worked in several iterations of macOS (maybe since Catalina or so).

You have stuff from avast. You should never install any third party "antivirus", "cleaners", or "optimizers". They're scams, decrease system performance and work against system security.

You have surfshark. Unless used to create a tunnel, as instructed, to connect to your work or school network, vpn actually decrease security. See Public VPN are anything but private

You also have Chrome and its background "updating" processes, which run all the time and syphon your precious data...

++ 1

🦉-53

Part 1 of 2

Restart in Safe Mode. This will perform a Disk Repair, clear cache files and only load Apple Software, extensions and fonts.

The boot up will be slow and can take some time - Normal.

Safe Mode will also eliminate Third Party Software, extensions and drivers from loading.

It will only load the Minimum amount of Core Apple Processes to allow the the computer to function at a reduced Level of Performance 

Does the issue present in this mode ?

If not - there could be something in the main User Account playing up.

To further isolate this - Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac.

Then log out of the Main User account and log into the dummy account and test again if the issue persists.

If the issue is present in the dummy account - then, this appears to be a System Wide issue on the computer.

Part 2 of 2

To Drill Down further and to avoid a session of 20 questions  

Download the Application Etrecheck  ( External Link ) directly from the Developer.

The Application is Not a " Silver Bullet "  and is  only a tool to examine the Hardware / Software used on this computer 

This is a Diagnostic Tool that makes no changes to the computer Hardware / Software used on this computer 

The application is free or paid from added features. 

The Report will Not Reveal Any Personal Information. 

Post back the Full Report - copy and paste - >>>> using the Additional Text Icon ( 3rd Icon to last ) <<<<

Thank you

Will do an in-depth review later

Right now

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

disk0 - APPLE SSD AP1024Z 1.00 TB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

Size: 994.66 GB

Free: 33.88 GB

Available: 103.41 GB

Meaning you have a lot of work to do some house cleaning

It is generally suggested to keep about 15% - maybe 20% to the Total Drive Capacity ( 1 TB GB ) as Free space

I don invite my colleague @ neuroanatomist to step in here because I know they have specific User Tip that may assist in this matter

From yet another contributor @etresoft regarding Free Space and Available Space 

Free vs available disk space huge differe… - Apple Community

Quote >>  “ The "available" storage is the amount of used storage that the operating system could automatically delete if it felt that it was really necessary. The "free" storage is the amount that you can actually use for something.

There are system processes that run in the background and automatically delete some of the "available" storage and convert it to "free". If you completely run out of storage, then those system processes will try a little harder. When you "delete" files you are just hinting to the operating system that you don't need those files anymore. The operating system will eventually remove them, but on its own schedule.

Certain tools will allow you to force the issue and manually clean up some of this storage and manually delete local snapshots. But that is only temporary. "  << End Quote 

Purgeable Space is controlled by the Operating System and not the user 

Get detailed information about a disk in Disk Utility on Mac

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

Add on

From a similar question

Photoshop 2022 can not open on macOS Tahoe - Apple Community

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