Resolved Messages App Lagging & Freezing on Fresh macOS Install (M1 MacBook Air)

[johnkree]

Hey everyone,


I recently did a clean reinstall of macOS on my M1 MacBook Air (no migration, everything fresh). Everything seems to be working fine except for the Messages app.


As soon as I open Messages, it works for a few seconds, but then it starts lagging badly — the UI becomes unresponsive, scrolling stutters, and after a few moments the app is basically frozen. Once I force-quit it, the rest of the system runs perfectly again. The issue returns every time I reopen Messages.


So far I've tried:

• Making sure macOS is fully updated
• Logging out and back into iMessage
• Creating a new user account (problem doesn't occur there)

It feels like there’s some kind of corruption or sync conflict, but I’m not sure how to properly fix it without fully disabling iCloud sync (which I’d rather not do).


Has anyone else run into this? Any ideas for a more permanent fix?


Thanks in advance!

 

[AlixSPQR]

Try a secure start, hold down shift key, log in, and then restart again, might work.

 

[johnkree]

Hey thank you for your reply. It was a syncing error. After another reinstallation with having the same problem again I deleted a ton of messages consisting links and media and suddenly it worked again.