15.7 with Safari 18.6 is doable - I'm running this combo on one of my machines and it's great. I had to stay with 18.6 on that one because 26.0 and 26.0.1 completely broke YouTube - videos loaded but wouldn't start, regardless what I tried. It looks like a potential AV1 issue. I couldn't be bothered so I rolled back to 18.6 and YouTube works perfectly.
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macOS 15.7 & Safari 26 = laggy garbage
- Thread starter Q'iu T'ing
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Oddly enough, the "downgrade" to Safari 18.6 worked on my 15.7.1 M2 Air, but not my 15.7.1 M4. Gets to the end of the install and errors at "Verifying install" or thereabouts. I tried it in Safe Boot and as Root. No joy. Not going to reinstall the OS for Safari. The M4 Max is stupid fast so I'll wait for Safari 26.1 and hope things are fixed. 🤷♂️
Same here with my M4. I wonder why that should be. Had an hour to spare, so reinstalled the OS and got everything up to snuff again.
That was the one I tried on my M4 with no success.
So I am still on Safari 26 on macOS 15.7.1 and haven't downgraded. Recently Safari 26.0.1 got installed and it still sometimes freezes for a second when opening a new tab. And if it doesn't freeze, it still takes almost a second to load the empty tab background + bookmarks
Disappointing
Disappointing
to add onto this, I think there must be a memory leak of some sorts. I noticed that restarting the browser helped the issue and before the restart Safari took 4gb of memory with only ~20 tabs open
I didn't realize my Safari had recently updated to 26. I wondered why it suddenly was so laggy, especially when using the search bar. Thank goodness for the quick and easy re-install of Sequoia. Took about 30 minutes to backup my data, just in case, then another 18 minutes to reinstall Sequoia and restore Safari back to v18.6. I tried the other methods to downgrade Safari but they didn't work on my M4 Pro MBP 14.
I am staying away from MacOS 26 for now. Apple really needs to direct some attention to their software side. The quality is noticeably slipping.
I am staying away from MacOS 26 for now. Apple really needs to direct some attention to their software side. The quality is noticeably slipping.
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Luckily I could get away with just the browser install.
But agreed about how woeful this was/ is, my M2 suddenly felt like my old C2D machine. And we're not even talking about Apple dealing with backward compatibility issues, trying to support operating systems that are many years old.
I thought it was just me. I'm running Safari 26.0.1 on Sequoia 15.7.1 and EVERY time I use the address/search bar, it freezes for a couple of seconds and makes my M4 MacBook Air feel more like my iBook G4 from twenty years ago!
A bug report has been filed to that effect. It has made me even more reticent about going the whole hog and upgrading to Tahoe. My iPhone and iPad will also remain on 18.7.1 for the foreseeable future!
A bug report has been filed to that effect. It has made me even more reticent about going the whole hog and upgrading to Tahoe. My iPhone and iPad will also remain on 18.7.1 for the foreseeable future!
Their telemetry should be showing loads of people experiencing Safari crashes and high memory usage. My feedback report about this stopped showing anything for "Recent Similar Reports" for a few weeks, but is now showing "More than 10" again, so that's a good sign.
But it also still shows "Resolution: Open", which is a bad sign.
I'm really hoping that we get a Safari 26.1 update for macOS 15.7.x when iOS 26.1 is released (tomorrow?) and that it fixes this, because if it doesn't we're probably going to be waiting at least another 40 days until the next point release 🫥
But it also still shows "Resolution: Open", which is a bad sign.
I'm really hoping that we get a Safari 26.1 update for macOS 15.7.x when iOS 26.1 is released (tomorrow?) and that it fixes this, because if it doesn't we're probably going to be waiting at least another 40 days until the next point release 🫥
I am on 26.1 on 15.7.2 seems to work OK
Indeed, after using Safari 26.1 on macOS 15.7.2 for a while, lags return. Again had to downgrade to Safari 18.6 to restore normal behaviour.
I've updated to 26.1, and I can say that the browser is finally fast, at least not the laggy mess that version 26.0.1 was. However, some of the annoying bugs have remained. The rearranging of the compact tabs behaves strangely; the tabs jump around erratically when I try to drag them. It's like they intentionally broke compact tabs to force people into switching to separate mode. The auto-suggestions in the address bar seem somewhat improved, but it's still a common occurrence that I have to type one or two extra letters before the suggestions pop up. Like before, when I wanted to go to MacRumors, I just had to type "mac..." (or even "ma..."), and boom, there it was. Now I have to type "macr...". It's really quite frustrating, and it makes me anxious about the possibility that they’ll never fix these issues, and this is what we, those of us who intend (or are forced) to stay on Sequoia, will be stuck with for the coming years. Sticking to 18.6 is not an option, as I really don't want to run a depreciated version of Safari in the long-term.
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vertical tab rearrangement is driving me crazy, aside from all the slowdowns and theoretical memory leaks
Glad to see it’s not only me having that issue. But I am still on 26.0.1 unless it auto updated while i wasnt looking
Like I said originally, it's not just that 26 is slow in 15.7.x, it's the changes in its basic functionality that are irritating e.g. the way it treats what happens when you begin to enter text into the address bar. Even if it had speed parity, 26 would still be a non-starter for me. Don't change things just (seemingly) for the sake of changing them unless they contribute to a better experience overall, Apple.
The only reason I am forced to even deal with 26 is because I can't back my 15.7.2 MBP to Safari 18.6 because the install errors out (see previous post).
The only reason I am forced to even deal with 26 is because I can't back my 15.7.2 MBP to Safari 18.6 because the install errors out (see previous post).
Safari 26.2 beta 1 for macOS Sequoia is now available for download from the developer site ( https://developer.apple.com/safari/resources/ ) for those with a developer account who are willing to take the usual risks. I've installed it, and so far there are promising signs: I can't make it occur by quickly typing and backspacing in the address bar, like I could on previous releases.
I'll report back later in the day after I've given it several hours of normal use.
Also, for me at least, typing a single character in the address bar will make it auto-complete. For example to get macrumors.com to appear, I only need to type m and it instantly completes to macrumors.com
I'll report back later in the day after I've given it several hours of normal use.
Also, for me at least, typing a single character in the address bar will make it auto-complete. For example to get macrumors.com to appear, I only need to type m and it instantly completes to macrumors.com