How Can I Remove macOS Tahoe After an Update is Causing Issues?
Asked by
CuriousNomad42
I've been having a nightmare since updating my Mac to Tahoe. The performance has gone downhill; it keeps freezing up, there's a crazy amount of memory usage, and it's throwing me out of the internet while everything else works perfectly fine. I've been running just one Safari tab and it's claiming I'm out of memory! I've done multiple virus scans and nothing came up, and I haven't downloaded anything new recently. I mostly just use my Mac for school stuff and Minecraft. People are saying I need to remove Tahoe, but I can't find anything in the applications folder related to the update. How do I do this?
Answers
Before jumping straight to removing Tahoe, let's clarify a few things! What kind of Mac do you have—Intel or Apple silicon? And what version of macOS were you using before the update? If you have issues with memory, you might want to check if you're running the latest macOS version, as earlier ones had known performance problems. Also, having multiple antivirus programs can really mess things up for macOS, so that might be part of your issue! Just a heads up: to downgrade, you typically need to erase the internal storage and reinstall from Internet Recovery or a bootable installer—it's not as simple as just deleting it.
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I had similar issues with my MacBook M2 Pro after updating, but the latest update to 26.2 really helped smooth out the performance issues I was facing, especially with things like the Windowserver process. Have you upgraded to that version yet? If not, I definitely recommend trying it first before doing anything drastic!
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You should consider doing a clean erase and fresh reinstall of Tahoe. Make sure to back everything up first though! And once you reinstall, avoid adding antivirus programs, as many are more trouble than they’re worth. After that, test your Safari like you mentioned and see if the crashing continues.
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It's pretty unusual for Tahoe to cause all those problems, especially since many users have been fine with it. Definitely make sure you've upgraded to version 26.2 because it addresses a lot of earlier bugs. And about those antivirus apps—macOS is pretty secure on its own, and running multiple antivirus programs is usually more trouble than they're worth. That's likely contributing to your freezing and crashing too!
Clean_Slate: Exactly! I used to use antivirus on my Mac, but switched to just relying on the built-in protections after I read how unnecessary they are for most users.
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Another potential solution is to simply add more RAM to your Mac if it's an option. It can help alleviate some of those memory issues you’re experiencing.
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User1234: Totally agree! I had issues after updating before too, and it turned out to be my old Mac not handling the new software well. You might need to back up your stuff and consider a clean install if problems persist.