Safari lag on MacBook after macOS Tahoe update

Question

Safari lag on MacBook after macOS Tahoe update

I have a 16 inch 2021 Apple M1 Max with 64GB on Tahoe 26.1. I am an invested user of Safari and do not use Chrome unless I have to.

Safari is laggy, extremely slow. I have seen comments in various forum discussions that Apple is aware of this issue single the launch of Tahoe, and would be fixing it. New updates did not do any good. There were suggestions to disable some functionality through console. Is there an active incident ticket that engineers are looking into it? Please help in any direction would be much appreciated.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: MacBook Pro slow, hot, Safari issues after macOS Tahoe

Posted on Nov 21, 2025 4:33 AM

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Answer 1

Allan Jones

Level 9

77,750 points

Nov 21, 2025 10:00 AM in response to TheEngineer99

I am running an M Pro Macbook Pro 14 24GB RAM with Tahoe and the only site I've found slow is this one. Forums issues.

Are you running any of the following non-Apple apps?:

— anti-virus?

— so-called "cleaning" tune-up or optimization apps?

— client-side VPNs (not issued by an employer for a company server)?

Activity Monitor (AM), included with macOS, can help spot high-demand apps and processes:

View information about Mac processes in Activity Monitor - Apple Support

Before running it, be sure to select "All Processes" from AM's "View" menu to see the full picture.

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Answer 2

Dec 5, 2025 4:19 AM in response to TheEngineer99

It looks like 26.2 Release Candidate has improved Safari experience. The animation during the auto-complete login credentials is more quick, and scroll has definitely more fluid, switching tabs with 50+ tabs do not crash the browser. There is still some lagging, however, I am not able to differentiate if it is the web site refetching content or the browser not able to render the content below the deck as requested. Again much improved compared to previous.

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Answer 3

Nov 21, 2025 11:23 AM in response to Allan Jones

Hey, I have got two VPNs installed but they are disabled (Disconnected) in Settings -> VPN section. No Cleaning up software or anti-virus is install. I avoid them at all costs. When I check the battery icon, I see no apps using significant energy.

Regarding Activity Monitoring numbers:

Window Server -> ~75% CPU

Kerner_task -> ~19 % CPU

Safari -> ~9-10% CPU

Generally 3 row and below changes frequently.

Memory wise:

UA Mixer Helper 16.70 GB

WindowServer 2.26 GB and so on.

Energy impact:

WindowServer is always on the top.

Nothing unusual I guess.

Scroll is the big issue although inconsistent. It seems like scroll action is paused for a 1sec after page is loaded which feels like something is blocking the main thread momentarily. Also same lagginess when filling in login email/pwd etc. Let me know if you need any additional information.

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