Slow or poor performance in AutoCAD for Mac

Autodesk Support

Nov 14, 2024

Products and versions covered

Issue:

The response time of AutoCAD for Mac is sluggish showing one, or more of the following symptoms:
  • Commands run slowly or hang after executed.
  • Object selection lag.
  • Mouse movements are slow, hang, skip, or hesitate.
  • The program intermittently pauses or freezes.
  • Spinning mouse cursor after every action.
  • Drawing files are slow to open.
  • Files take a long time to regenerate during drawing navigation.
  • Degraded performance over time.
  • Switching between drawings or drawing tabs.

Environment:

Mac

Solution:

Basic checks

Supplementary troubleshooting steps

  • Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy. Add AutoCAD to "Full Disk Access."
  • Clear system cache:
    1. Restart the computer in safe boot. Reboot and hold down the shift key as the computer starts up. This does a disk check and clears cache files.
    2. Start the Disk Utility and do First Aid on the hard disk. In old macOS systems, it is possible to do "Repair Disk Permissions." Newer systems no longer have this.
    3. Restart the computer to normal mode.
  • Turn off Time Machine in System Preferences.
  • In AutoCAD, using the command line, set the following variables to zero:
  • Change the visual style to 2D Wireframe (not for AutoCAD LT).
  • Reset the host name on the system:
    1. Quit AutoCAD.
    2. Open the Terminal and execute the following command (copy-paste it and press Enter):
    3. scutil --set HostName $(scutil --get LocalHostName)
    4. Input admin password if prompted. 
  • If a third-party storage provider is used, save the file on a different folder or change storage provider synchronization settings.
  • Switch the graphics engine in use by the program. Go to Preferences > General and either change from Metal to OpenGL or the other way round. Click OK to exit Preferences and then close and restart the program for the change to take effect.

Products:

AutoCAD for Mac; AutoCAD LT for Mac;

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