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macOS 15.7 & Safari 26 = laggy garbage

Q'iu T'ing

Q'iu T'ing

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2021
7
9
I am in Safari for most of my workday. Since I upgraded to macOS 15.7 & Safari 26, it has been excruciating. I feel like I'm using a Core 2 Duo from 2008 on dialup instead of an M4 Pro with 48GB RAM on GigE.

1. CONSTANT R/W disk access
2. Click link, 5 secs to open a new window, and 5x as long as previously to load any page
3. Close window - 5 secs to close
4. Jumpy distorted scrolling
5. Rendering issues with some elements
6. Logged out of many sites for no reason

I'm an Apple Consultant of 30 years, so yes, I've tried all of the usual (and unusual) troubleshooting techniques.

WTF? Anyone else seeing this?
 
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UPDATE 1600CDT:
I just saw that Safari 26.0.1 was released, so I installed it. It's definitely an improvement over 26.0, but still laggy.
 
I forgot to add that Safari 26 changed the way it references your history and autofills web addresses. I keep all of my browsing history for reference. As an example, previously, if I typed "j" in the address bar it would immediately autofill jxxxxxxx.com which I look at several times per day, or "ma" would bring up macrumors.com. Now, typing "ma" will initiate a search for "ma". If I want macrumors.com, I now have to type "macr" before it will autofill. An odd change, and an irritating one that I've dealt with at least 50 times today.
 
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Q'iu T'ing said:
I forgot to add that Safari 26 changed the way it references your history and autofills web addresses. I keep all of my browsing history for reference. As an example, previously, if I typed "j" in the address bar it would immediately autofill jxxxxxxx.com which I look at several times per day, or "ma" would bring up macrumors.com. Now, typing "ma" will initiate a search for "ma". If I want macrumors.com, I now have to type "macr" before it will autofill. An odd change, and an irritating one that I've dealt with at least 50 times today.
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Same here. And I"m on a 2020 i7 iMac 27". There was a slight improvement with Safari 26.0.1 , but I still end up tens of times a day on one or two letter search pages instead of on the intended webpages. It's seems to be a combination of being slow and a change in the way it works (probably a contingency because it's slow).
 
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RobertPS said:
Same here. And I"m on a 2020 i7 iMac 27". There was a slight improvement with Safari 26.0.1 , but I still end up tens of times a day on one or two letter search pages instead of on the intended webpages. It's seems to be a combination of being slow and a change in the way it works (probably a contingency because it's slow).
Click to expand...
It's not just slow. If I type "ma" Safari 26/26.0.1 will just sit there and never autofill until I enter "macr". I've toggled all of the settings in Safari and DuckDuckGo and it is definitely something changed in Safari 26 functionality.
 
Be sure to contact support with your issues. You're still under warranty with an M4, right? Nothing will change at Apple unless you make sure they know you are unhappy with their changes as a paying customer.
 
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Q'iu T'ing said:
It's not just slow. If I type "ma" Safari 26/26.0.1 will just sit there and never autofill until I enter "macr". I've toggled all of the settings in Safari and DuckDuckGo and it is definitely something changed in Safari 26 functionality.
Click to expand...
Yes, that what I meant when I said they also changed the way it works.
!!! said:
Be sure to contact support with your issues. You're still under warranty with an M4, right? Nothing will change at Apple unless you make sure they know you are unhappy with their changes as a paying customer.
Click to expand...
I couldn't even select Mac OS 15.7 when I reported this earlier. It was not an option. I reported it under the last version of 15.6. Mac OS 26, which was released at the same time as 15.7, was available as an option though.
This is basic stuff, Apple should get their house in order.
 
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I just upgraded to 15.7 yesterday (Safari 26.0.1) and I'm also getting sluggishness from Safari. Rebooting helped for a bit, but it's lagging again. There is a noticeable one second delay between switching tabs. Just in typing this message I'm getting some lag from the cursor.

I'm on a lowly M1 MBP, but I had no problem before the upgrade yesterday.
 
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I am on a M1 Max MacBook Pro with macOS 15.7 and Safari 26.0.1 installed, and can also say that it is terrible.
When Safari's been running for a bit cmd+l to focus on the location bar takes a full 2 seconds. There is lag when switching tabs, there is lag before it registers keystrokes when typing. Hopefully they get this fixed soon.
 
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You would expect Safari 18.7 for macOS 15.7…… 🥴
It sounds like Safari 26 should only be used with macOS 26.

Once again (nice one Apple), this is why I wait at least a couple of weeks before installing updates.
 
When I open safari 26 in a Mac mini 2018 i5 16gb ram
The fan immediately starts up on the Mac , I can hear it , just by opening the app

Is there a way to downgrade just safari ? Back to update before 26
 
Has anyone tried upgrading to Tahoe? Does Safari work fine there? I’m trying to determine whether or not I want to do a Time Machine restore, or just take the plunge and do the full upgrade.
 
melodibit said:
Has anyone tried upgrading to Tahoe? Does Safari work fine there? I’m trying to determine whether or not I want to do a Time Machine restore, or just take the plunge and do the full upgrade.
Click to expand...
Personally I would NOT upgrade to Tahoe yet (on my main boot disk anyway), it’s not even been a week since release.
Does all your software work properly in macOS 26?
You could install to an external drive to try it out… ;)

Wait a couple of months for bugs to be fixed.
Check the Tahoe thread for any problems others may have encountered.

I have only just upgraded to macOS 15 a couple of weeks ago…. 🤪
I usually run a year behind and upgrade before the new version is released, to let all problems get resolved.
 
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MarkC426 said:
You would expect Safari 18.7 for macOS 15.7…… 🥴
It sounds like Safari 26 should only be used with macOS 26.
Click to expand...
when OS 26, 15.7 and Safari updates came up all at once, I got me the last two - in hindsight, I have no idea why I went for Safari, since I never use it, and now I also wonder why did it have an update of its own - I would have thought that it's part of OS? can you therefore roll it back to the previous version?
 
There usually is a separate update to Safari whenever there is a macOS update.
I don’t think it is easy to revert back to a previous version of Safari.

There are some alternate sites that have previous installers, but it’s whether you trust them.
 
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I don't know, it could be communication related to settings in Safari for fraudulent website warnings, or a selected search machine.

Perhaps local Spotlight indexing took several days to finish and made Safari slow, although I did not see any evidence of that in Activity monitor.

Edit: After running for a while Safari is slow again. Closing and opening Safari again removes/reduces the lag after typing in the web address field
 
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Found this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1nm534e/sluggish_safari_26_when_opening_new_tabs_or

People are reporting that taking the full plunge into MacOS 26 fixes Safari sluggishness. I've not tried it myself.

Also, I notice that after rolling back to 15.6.1 that in the software updates 15.7 and Safari 26.0.1 are separate updates. So apparently you can JUST update to 15.7 if you like and NOT update Safari. I haven't personally tried this, but just an FYI.
 
I also upgraded to Mac OS 15.7 and did the Safari update as well... I did not go to the new OS.

Safari to me was just horrible, it was slow, buggy and usually when I would type in the address bar lets say yo then youtube would just populate along with a bunch of other sites without much typing. After the update I would have to type in youtu for youtube to show up. I got sick and tired of this so quick. I made a Genius bar appointment yesterday and the Genius asked me to keep this a secret but I wont reveal any names, so I can tell here.

He asked me if I had a Time Machine backup which I explained I did. He then showed me and did it with me and restarted the computer into Recovery mode, connected to wi-fi and chose to reinstall OS. After it did that, I was still on 15.7 but the Safari update was gone and when you go to about Safari it went back to Version 18.6 (20621.3.11.11.3). Now everything Safari wise is right back to the way it was that I loved.

He then went into System Preferences and unclicked to auto download and install updates, as it showed the Safari 26 update and the new OS too. He told me as long as I dont click those and downlaod and install them it wont update and my Safari will stay the same now.

I did not loose one file or anything and everything Safari wise is back to the way I loved it. Quick, Accurate, etc. I hope this helps someone else!

Edit: I never needed to restore a time machine backup, he just asked if I had one to make sure if anything went wrong that I was safe. After the reinstall all my files were still there and the old Safari came back. It was like other than Safari nothing had changed.
 
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Same issue here. I expected to wait a couple of months before installing a major macOS release, but I didn’t think the same would apply to Safari updates. Reinstalling macOS just to downgrade Safari feels like too much hassle, so I’m hoping a fix arrives soon.
 
Just wanted to confirm that after (1) formatting and reinstalling OS 15.6.1, (2) recovering from Time Machine backup with Migration Assistant, and (3) upgrading to OS 15.7 WITHOUT upgrading Safari to 26.0.1, Safari is smooth sailing.
 
It's quite infuriating, I even had the whole browser freeze up on me yesterday.

The address bar taking a noticeable time to load is also really annoying, especially with how inconsistent it is at autofilling the URL based on my browsing history.

I don't want to update to MacOS 26 at the moment for various reasons :(
 
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