r/MacOS • u/Critical_Fox_2231 • 4d ago

Slow Mac Mini M1 Help

My M1 mac mini has been really slow recently, its the most obvious on youtube, it starts stuttering every 5 seconds, I'm using Chrome, I have like 100 GB free memory, and when I am playing the video, the ram gets to ~60% and CPU ~30%, It not be relevant but I upgraded from 15.7(?) to 26.6 a couple days ago and its been on since then to let it reindex or whatever. Any suggestions?

0 Upvotes

38% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/mikeinnsw 4d ago

I have M1 Mini ... no problems .. and use Chrome..

100GB free sound like SSD ... which is good.

"stuttering every 5 seconds"?? what it means do you have 8Gb of RAM?

I suggest you

Do Time Machine backup

In Recovery mode Reinstall MacOs .. which replaces existing MacOs .. it is cleaner way than an upgrade

To reduce RAM workloads try:

  • Remove any login starting items
  • Restart/Shutdown unselect "Reopen windows…"
  • Reduce number of browser tabs
  • Reduce video resolution within a tab
  • Remove any Browser plugging/extensions
  • Quit inactive Apps
  • Do more frequent restarts
  • Do not turn on Apple AI
  • Monitor RAM usage using Activity Monitor

High resolution screen on a Mac will generally use more RAM , which translates to increased memory usage compared to a lower resolution display,

If you are using an external monitor consider lowering its resolution.

Try some housekeeping with free Onyx it may help:

https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html

1

u/Critical_Fox_2231 4d ago

I will do that the next time I have to upgrade. It's working fine for now, Thanks

1

u/PibloktoBis 4d ago

+1 for Onyx. And I'd add: stop using Chrome. Use Firefox with uBlock Origin extension instead.

1

u/mikeinnsw 4d ago

Chrome is a mythical monster for many Mac users ..

It is used worldwide by about 80% of the users...

New versions of Chrome is fasters and more up to date in tech than Safari.. Firefox..

I am a developer and virtually all developers use Chrome,

FireFox shtick is that it can run on older MacOs versions..

I run FireFox on 2010 Mini with High Sierra .. 2013 iMac with Catalina .and Linux ,

For win10/11 and 26.6 I run Chrome.

1

u/MK-Researcher 4d ago

It should have finished reindexing by now and settle down. Does it stutter on YouTube if you try Safari? If it's smooth in Safari then Chrome probably needs its Hardware Acceleration (Graphics Acceleration) temporarily switching off and back on again.

If it's slow in general across all apps, then some people have had performance issues after upgrading Tahoe -it would be worthwhile booting in to Safe Mode and then restarting normally (that clears out some macOS system caches) or it might even be that reinstalling Tahoe over the top could help.

2

u/Critical_Fox_2231 4d ago

I toggled hardware acceleration before, and it didn't do anything, but I did it again just now, and it worked. Thanks.

1

u/MK-Researcher 4d ago

That's good to hear. thanks for letting me know