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How many seconds do you wait for the first launch of Word app on your MBP

emraha06

emraha06

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 1, 2017
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I use m2 max device and after clean restart when I want to open word for the first time and click word icon, it takes 10 seconds from beginning of the icon jumping to first document selection menu.

Is this 10 seconds of waiting with jumping icon normal?

Could you please share yours with device type (m1/m2/m3 pro max)

Note:latest sonoma and word version installed in my mbp
 
I have the same issue on my Macbook Pro 2018. Not just with Word but with many other applications as well. I solved it with having the apps that I use most being started right after a re-start of MacOS. It initially takes a bit longer to start but once finished the wait is over.
 
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This is entirely normal. I just timed it and Word (the Mac App Store version) took about 10-12 seconds to launch on my M1 Pro MacBook Pro.

I timed a few other apps that were launched for the first time since reboot:
Apple Numbers: 7 seconds
Microsoft Excel: 10 seconds
Google Chrome: 8 seconds
DxO Photolab: 9 seconds
Adobe Lightroom CC: 12 seconds
Adobe Photoshop: 20 seconds
Affinity Designer: 40 seconds
Affinity Photo: 45 seconds

These are all heavyweight apps and some of them have to load considerable resources into memory. Once you launch an app for the first time macOS will store parts of it in cached memory until its needed for something else, hence why apps launch faster a second time around.
 
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Word has always been slow to launch. Whether it's Word 6.0 on Windows 3.1 (the splash screen is still in my mind, decades later), the latest Windows version on Win 11, or the latest Mac version, it's always taken several seconds to launch.
 
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Nermal said:
Word has always been slow to launch.
Click to expand...
^This.

Back in the day my C2D MBP (last time I had Office loaded on a Mac) took about 50 seconds to launch Office. Replaced the spinner with an SSD and cut a whopping 5 seconds off the launch time.

But then again, most office productivity programs are bloatware and will launch slow: loading resources/libraries, resolving references, securely mapping memory, generating/displaying initial program window(s), etc.
 
bradman83 said:
This is entirely normal. I just timed it and Word (the Mac App Store version) took about 10-12 seconds to launch on my M1 Pro MacBook Pro.

I timed a few other apps that were launched for the first time since reboot:
Apple Numbers: 7 seconds
Microsoft Excel: 10 seconds
Google Chrome: 8 seconds
DxO Photolab: 9 seconds
Adobe Lightroom CC: 12 seconds
Adobe Photoshop: 20 seconds
Affinity Designer: 40 seconds
Affinity Photo: 45 seconds

These are all heavyweight apps and some of them have to load considerable resources into memory. Once you launch an app for the first time macOS will store parts of it in cached memory until its needed for something else, hence why apps launch faster a second time around.
Click to expand...
Do you also experience spinning wheel sometimes especially saving the document or scrolling the page (doc with high res pictures and graphs)
 
emraha06 said:
I use m2 max device and after clean restart when I want to open word for the first time and click word icon, it takes 10 seconds from beginning of the icon jumping to first document selection menu.

Is this 10 seconds of waiting with jumping icon normal?

Could you please share yours with device type (m1/m2/m3 pro max)

Note:latest sonoma and word version installed in my mbp
Click to expand...
8 seconds. Pretty darn fast. When Word is closed and shut down, it only takes 1.5 seconds
 
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emraha06 said:
I use m2 max device and after clean restart when I want to open word for the first time and click word icon, it takes 10 seconds from beginning of the icon jumping to first document selection menu.

Is this 10 seconds of waiting with jumping icon normal?

Could you please share yours with device type (m1/m2/m3 pro max)

Note:latest sonoma and word version installed in my mbp
Click to expand...

Processor model, RAM, OS version are all irrelevant with respect to this behavior. Office apps on Mac OS always take longer to open the first time they are launched. This has been the case for several years now. Part of that is because the first launch also includes Microsoft validating the license information.
 
MacBook Pro with M2 Max, MS Word took 9 seconds from clicking the icon to showing a window.

(Also have a Windows laptop here, with high-end 11th gen Intel CPU, only took 4 seconds. I think the Windows version is better optimized... no surprise. Overall it works OK, but a lot of things about Office on Mac seem "lazy" to me.)

[Edit]
Tried the Windows version running in Parallels on my MacBook Pro with M2 Max. 2 seconds!
 
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Two things in my setup that lets me not have this problem:
1. I don't shut down or restart my mac unless it's required by something, I just let the displays go to sleep. This means that there could be weeks, even months, between an application is 'launched for the first time since startup', and often lots of the data needed by the app is already in the ram because it's been run before, so it's fast.
2. With lots of available ram, I can have lots of apps running in the background all the time. No need to quit them at all.
 
To get to Word's "Recents" screen my M2 Max takes 1.7 seconds upon initial launch. Is this what you meant?
 
Alpha Centauri said:
To get to Word's "Recents" screen my M2 Max takes 1.7 seconds upon initial launch. Is this what you meant?
Click to expand...
Restart your Mac, wait for everything is loaded (one min) after that click word button and measure the time from icon starts jumping to first window comes
 
emraha06 said:
Restart your Mac, wait for everything is loaded (one min) after that click word button and measure the time from icon starts jumping to first window comes
Click to expand...
In that scenario it was 2 seconds (or a bit less even, minus reaction time) using MS Office 2021. No icon has even a chance to bounce.

Edit: This M2 Max has 64GB RAM, if that makes any difference to the fast loading time?
 
Last edited:
It's always around 8 bounces for me if the app hasn't been opened in a while. Nearly immediate every time thereafter. MBP M3 Max. Mac App Store version.
 
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