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Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

avarayr.github.io

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Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#51

Post by dheera »

Spunkie wrote: post #15

In general the Tahoe update has been awful for all my end users that decided to update. It's not just electron apps that are the issue btw, just yesterday we ran into an issue with Zoom. It was breaking prompts/popups and by extension the system settings, the Mac app store, iTouch, and a ton of other random stuff was broken in silent and inconsistent ways. Also all my 8gb users are noticing significantly higher memor…

The real problem is Apple being so stingy with RAM.

I have 192GB of RAM on my (non-Apple) desktop and 96GB of RAM on my (non-Apple) laptop. I have never had memory issues with Electron apps, 200 Chrome tabs open, or pretty much anything, really.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#52

Post by eptcyka »

pants2 wrote: post #34
Spunkie wrote: post #15

In general the Tahoe update has been awful for all my end users that decided to update. It's not just electron apps that are the issue btw, just yesterday we ran into an issue with Zoom. It was breaking prompts/popups and by extension the system settings, the Mac app store, iTouch, and a ton of other random stuff was broken in silent and inconsistent ways. Also all my 8gb users are noticing significantly higher memor…

Why do you install the Zoom app? Seems like only a way to collect data on you vs the web version that works just great.

Web version doesn’t handle large amounts of participants in a single call, way back when I used zoom.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#53

Post by h05sz487b »

Spunkie wrote: post #15

In general the Tahoe update has been awful for all my end users that decided to update. It's not just electron apps that are the issue btw, just yesterday we ran into an issue with Zoom. It was breaking prompts/popups and by extension the system settings, the Mac app store, iTouch, and a ton of other random stuff was broken in silent and inconsistent ways. Also all my 8gb users are noticing significantly higher memor…

Good that I went with 64 gigs for my last mac. But I'll wait for the first patch at least for this one.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#55

Post by jonhohle »

whatever1 wrote: post #48
binaryturtle wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is that? Like 32x >100MB junk overhead per app? ~4GiB gone from the disk just to hold the same broken copy of some framework/library? It's quite the insanity, isn't it? If there was one copy of that electron (e.g. installed to /Library somewhere) which all apps would simply use then you only would need to update one copy. Less disk space wasted. All apps fixed in one go. Back in the old days on the Commodore Ami…

No F shared libraries. Seriously. Memory and storage is cheap enough nowadays to not have to deal with the insanity that shared libraries cause. I don’t care if I use 30gb of memory to run a browser and a note taking app.

Some of us do care. Devs should respect users systems more than their own instead of crapping all over them with Electron. I’d almost go as far as to say that it’s evil. Wasting resources, energy, people’s time, and money.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#56

Post by JimDabell »

the_lucifer wrote: post #49

Seeing 1Password there hurts me. They used to be paragons of well designed native apps that they dumped with 8.

I’m not sure I’ve seen an app plummet in quality as much as 1Password. I used to recommend it to everybody and switched multiple employers to it. Now I actively recommend against it. It wasn’t just abandoning native, somehow they make it worse with every release.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#57

Post by oefrha »

binaryturtle wrote: post #32
nikolay wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some notable apps without fixes (which I have installed locally): * 1Password.app * Bruno.app * Claude.app (oh noes!) * Cursor.app * Docker.app * Dropbox Dash.app * Dropbox.app * Element.app * GitKraken.app * Graphite.app * HEY.app (shame on DHH!) * Keeper Password Manager.app (it's not just 1Password) * Keybase.app * Kiro.app (come on, AWS!) * Ledger Live.app (crypto seems to lag behind Web 2.0 still!) * Loom.app *…

What is that? Like 32x >100MB junk overhead per app? ~4GiB gone from the disk just to hold the same broken copy of some framework/library? It's quite the insanity, isn't it? If there was one copy of that electron (e.g. installed to /Library somewhere) which all apps would simply use then you only would need to update one copy. Less disk space wasted. All apps fixed in one go. Back in the old days on the Commodore Ami…

No shit. One major frigging selling point of Electron vs OS web view is the developer controls the browser version and has a stable target to develop and test against, rather than having many moving targets that shift after the app is shipped.

And you really think the entire ecosystem has never heard of this honking great idea named shared libraries from the good old days? Being smug about obvious things like this usually just betrays your shallow understanding.

Disclosure: I’ve criticized Electron aplenty. But these are complex tradeoffs and people dismissing them with obvious wins in their minds are clueless.

Disclosure 2: I was once a member of the maintainer team of a major package manager. Shared libraries, oh my, I can tell you horror stories all night long. If your experiences with them are great chances are a team behind the scenes has blocked and/or fixed faulty updates for you and shielded you from most of the issues.

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#58

Post by willtemperley »

dheera wrote: post #51
Spunkie wrote: post #15

In general the Tahoe update has been awful for all my end users that decided to update. It's not just electron apps that are the issue btw, just yesterday we ran into an issue with Zoom. It was breaking prompts/popups and by extension the system settings, the Mac app store, iTouch, and a ton of other random stuff was broken in silent and inconsistent ways. Also all my 8gb users are noticing significantly higher memor…

The real problem is Apple being so stingy with RAM. I have 192GB of RAM on my (non-Apple) desktop and 96GB of RAM on my (non-Apple) laptop. I have never had memory issues with Electron apps, 200 Chrome tabs open, or pretty much anything, really.

It's not a memory problem at all. It's the misuse of a private API that's at fault:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/02/macos_26_electron_slo...

Re: Track which Electron apps slow down macOS 26 Tahoe

#59

Post by concinds »

lawgimenez wrote: post #50
the_lucifer wrote: post #49

Seeing 1Password there hurts me. They used to be paragons of well designed native apps that they dumped with 8.

Truly sad, if I remember they were still migrating to SwiftUI for their iOS app. I have an app which almost shares the same SwiftUI codebase with iOS and macOS, and I am a one-man dev. If I can do it, I believe these million dollar company can also.

SwiftUI is still broken for any non-simple apps, almost a decade after its introduction. Completely unacceptable for big apps. Look at OmniFocus, who inexplicably became early-adopters of it, and it's had a bunch of UI glitches and inconsistent behavior requiring app restart (like you select one list item, but the inspector shows you details for another list item) ever since.

Apple only has itself to blame for Electron's popularity.

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