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Craft Slow or Laggy on Mac

Workaround available macOS Updated October 21, 2026

Quick answer

Craft slowdowns on Mac usually come from many open tabs/windows, window managers like Magnet or Rectangle, External Storage spaces or third-party text tools. Restart Craft via Activity Monitor, close unused tabs and update those tools.

Most likely fix: Restart Craft properly.

Symptoms

Typing lags, scrolling stutters, the app beachballs, or resizing the window is choppy.

Why it happens

  • Many tabs and windows open at once
  • Outdated window managers (Magnet, Rectangle)
  • External Storage spaces
  • Third-party text tools such as Grammarly hooking into the editor
  • Very large documents with many images

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

  1. 1. Restart Craft properly

    1. Open Activity Monitor
    2. Select Craft and force quit
    3. Reopen Craft

  2. 2. Reduce open tabs and windows

    1. Close documents and windows you aren't using

  3. 3. Update window managers and text tools

    1. Update Magnet, Rectangle or similar
    2. For Grammarly: install the desktop app, grant Accessibility in System Settings > Privacy & Security, then restart Craft

  4. 4. Send a Spindump for persistent lag

    1. In Activity Monitor select Craft > ⋯ > Spindump
    2. Send it to Craft support with your app and macOS version

This guide also covers

  • craft slow mac
  • craft lagging
  • why is craft so slow
  • craft docs performance

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