Image or video editing apps, like iMovie or Photoshop, are also resource-intensive. As photographer Christopher Michel discovered, Google's Backup and Sync app can also be a drain. If you use Google Chrome, you likely already know it's usually at the top of the list.

However, some apps are more prone to bringing your system to a crawl than others. Your browser is (likely) the biggest culpritĪlmost any app can hog your Mac's processing power and memory, causing sluggish performance as a result.

We walk you through the most common apps that hog up system resources, how to figure out which apps are to blame, and give you the best tips for keeping your Mac running as smooth as possible. You can either learn to live with the frequent slowdowns, finding some solace in forced miniature breaks, but it's better to take the time to identify what's ailing your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro and fix it - or at least get it moving again.

(Hopefully, Apple's newly announced $6,000 Mac Pro has enough raw power to sidestep this messy business.) Eventually, the beachball goes away, and you get some more work done until the ball returns. The dreaded beachball makes an appearance, spinning countless times all the while you can't get any work done. It almost never fails, just as you're about to finish a big project for work or school, with a deadline looming, your Mac begins to slow down.

Process manager mac