Yes. In the sandbox with default theme, no snippets and no community plugins.
Expected result
Speedy navigation.
Actual result
Slow navigation.
Environment
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.7.7
Installer version: v1.6.7
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.2.0: Fri Dec 6 19:02:41 PST 2024; root:xnu-11215.61.5~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6030 24.2.0
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: none
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on
Problem
When I move from one file to another, change tabs, or click to focus on a particular document in Obsidian, the app shows the spinning beach ball. This occurs even with a minimal vault (just 2–3 files) while using iCloud sync with “Keep downloaded files” enabled. Notably, the issue does not occur when I use the Obsidian Sandbox vault.
Steps to Reproduce the Issue
Sync Settings:
Use iCloud for vault syncing with the “Keep downloaded files” option enabled.
Vault Setup:
Create or open a vault that contains only 2–3 files (minimal vault).
Environment:
Use Obsidian on an M3 Pro MacBook Pro with 18 GB RAM.
Ensure the latest version of Obsidian is installed (downloaded from the official website).
User Actions:
Move from one file to another (change tabs or click on a different document to focus).
The spinning beach ball appears during these navigation/focus actions.
Theme Change (Additional Step):
Change the theme in Obsidian (try both a different theme and the default theme).
The issue persists regardless of the theme used.
Plugin Status:
All installed plugins are updated.
Launch Obsidian in Safe Mode (with all community plugins disabled), yet the issue remains.
What I Have Tried to Fix It
Safe Mode:
Ran Obsidian in Safe Mode with all community plugins disabled.
Clearing Cache:
Deleted cache files located at: ~/Library/Application Support/obsidian/Cache/Cache_Data
Resetting Vault Configuration:
Deleted (or renamed) the hidden .obsidian folder in the vault.
Reinstalling Obsidian:
Overwrote the existing app by installing the latest version from the official website.
Also tried uninstalling and reinstalling without deleting configuration files.
Minimal Vault Test:
Created a new vault with just 2–3 files to rule out a vault-specific issue.
Theme Change:
Changed themes (including reverting to the default theme) with no effect.
Plugin Updates:
Confirmed that all installed plugins are updated.
Despite all these steps, the beach ball still appears when navigating between files or when focusing on a document.
Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]
Y
Expected result
No beach ball
Actual result
Beach ball loading indicator on MacOS
Environment
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.8.9
Installer version: v1.8.9
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.1.0: Thu Oct 10 21:00:32 PDT 2024; root:xnu-11215.41.3~2/RELEASE_ARM64_T6030 24.1.0
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: dark
Community theme: Minimal v7.7.19
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 31
Plugins enabled: 9
1: Smart Composer v1.1.13
2: Settings Search v1.3.10
3: Rollover Daily Todos v1.1.8
4: Recent Files v1.7.4
5: Image Context Menus v1.9.1
6: Outliner v4.9.0
7: Commander v0.5.2
8: Writing Goals v0.10.11
9: Zoom v1.1.2
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.
Community plugins: for bugs, please first try updating all your plugins to latest. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community plugins.
A reason why this could happen, as it doesn’t happen in the Sandbox Vault and you didn’t mention anything about this in your post, would be a “bad mix” of plugins… or a “faulty” one …
Meaning you would need to find the culprit(s) (the plugin Divide & Conquer can help you with that).
You could also check the console of the Dev Tools to see if there aren’t any errors in there .
I have a MBP M2 (16 GB RAM + MacOS up-to-date), sync and store my vaults using iCloud and never encountered anything like this … but I also don’t use any of the plugins you mentioned.
I’ll also admit I don’t use the keep downloaded feature on my Mac …
This may be due to a permission problem to access your files. We have had users having something similar who installed the app with one user and are running with another user.
I only have one user on my Mac, so this shouldn’t apply.
I am using iCloud sync for using it on my iPhone. I think that might be causing the issue. I am considering removing the iCloud sync and deleting the Obsidian iOS App.
It’s completely preventing me from using Obsidian more, and am tending towards using Apple Notes more, even though I believe in the Files > App philosophy.
I posted this. I had 1.9.14 (Installer 1.9.10) installed in my macOS and following the recommendation of the community, I upgraded from scratch. Now I have 1.9.14 (Installer 1.9.14) installed, and it solved the issue.
Swapping between two documents is causing a freeze and crash (I submitted a report). When I open Obsidian, it lets me write, and everything works well, but as soon as I change the document, it freezes, and if right click the icon in the dock, I get “Application not responding”.
It was working correctly before the upgrade, and I don’t know what to fix, since it’s making this impossible to use.
I disabled all the community plugins and still happening.
Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]
Y
Expected result
Not to freeze
Actual result
Environment
SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.9.14
Installer version: v1.9.14
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 25.0.0: Wed Sep 17 21:41:45 PDT 2025; root:xnu-12377.1.9~141/RELEASE_ARM64_T6000 25.0.0
Login status: not logged in
Language: en
Insider build toggle: off
Live preview: on
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: on
I merged your new report with this one.
We are not quite sure why some people have this problem, it has something to do with user permissions and where the vault is located. I’ll suggest to look at those.
Check some of the replies above and see if they are relevant
Are you storing your vault in iCloud? (Or any other syncing tool)
This might be completely unrelated, but I was getting freezing beach balls for 2 to 8 seconds on file operations in Finder. And I had the process fseventsd going 99% CPU usage constantly. I killed that process, and when it restarted the problem was fixed for me. (It had nothing to do with Obsidian. It was only impacting my use in Finder. But you might want to look in Activity Monitor and see if any processes are working overtime.)
I tried to remove the cache_data folder and the other solutions.
I started uploading several large files to iCloud and the upload process is still going, and I have Obsidian my vault saved on iCloud as well, with the “keep downloaded” flag. When I opened Activity Monitor, I saw a huge % CPU usage on “Sirisuggestionsbookkeepingservice”. I disabled Siri completely, and the process went away, but Obsidian still freezes.
Maybe it’s related to iCloud syncing my files? But obsidian should not be affected by that. fileproviderd, bird, and cloudd are around 50% cpu at the moment.
1 - Open Obsidian
2 - I can interact with the current note without any issues.
3 - Change to another note, the page loads correctly
4 - But unable to interact with the note and rainbow appears.
Obsidian doesn’t recover at all from that state, and then if I force close it, it shows the typical Apple crash dialog.
Edit that I noticed: I had many Siri processes in my activity monitor and after disabling Siri completely, the system feels a lot snappier. Both the issue still persists. This macOS 26 is very unstable.
Update: I moved the folders that I was copying to iCloud and also my Desktop and Document folders to a folder outside iCloud. Then I went to Settings → “My name” → iCloud Drive and unchecked “Desktop & Documents Folders”.
After that, Obsidian started working correctly. Although on Finder, the iCloud Drive is still stuck with the uploading / download bubble. To fix that, I turned off/on the “Sync the Mac” and clicked again on “Keep Downloaded” and everything was sorted.
Now I’m going to enable the “Desktop & Documents Folders” and try to copy back the things. I feel that there is a bug reading the files, while iCloud is syncing. Which should not happen since all the Obsidian vault files are already in my disk locally.
From what I’ve seen, each “edit” (opening/closing a tab, as this is saved within the workspace.json or actually editing a note) you make in Obsidian triggers iCloud sync/upload (in a somewhat real time)…
So, if iCloud is already very busy doing something else, it could not take kindly the additional work it has to perform with Obsidian (as iCloud can be slow) …
After that, I’m in different setup (I’m still on Sequoia, given the things I’ve seen about Tahoe ), I absolutely don’t sync “Documents & Desktop” to iCloud and I don’t have the Keep downloaded feature enabled on the iCloud Obsidian folder (I know I should though )
Tahoe is such a mess right now, but I heard that 26.1 is way more stable. After further investigation, what I think caused all my iCloud sync overload was the fact that I added some folders to iCloud Drive with the “Desktop & Documents Folders” settings that contained some node_modules and .git folders.
After deleting these folders, some folders got stuck in the upload/download process (I could see some entries with the “log” command and also “brctl status”. So for anyone in the same boat:
I moved all the files from iCloud to a regular folder.
“killall bird”. The files were still stuck there.
“~/Library/Mobile Documents/.Trash” and delete the contents inside. At some point I mv the entire Mobile Documents folder. I also moved “~/Library/Application Support/CloudDocs”. (make sure you know what you are doing).
Double-check iCloud Trash on another device like an iPhone or iPad, or even the browser. Clean all the files there and refresh the page until they are not there anymore.
Turn off/on iCloud Drive in the settings on macOS and then move everything again.
I’m being very verbose here so I could help people in the same situation.
But while I understand your argument about the additional work of iCloud causing the system to be busy, when I open another note, the note is indeed loaded successfully. It just freezes AFTER being loaded, meaning that the file is indeed loaded (which was our goal in the first place). I think the fix should start with moving some of that work that gets stuck to a second plan until it becomes available, that way the user can still use Obsidian.
By the way, I have a crash report, so if the team wants to take a look, please DM me.
.
… but I also don’t use any of the plugins you mentioned.
…
), I absolutely don’t sync “Documents & Desktop” to iCloud and I don’t have the 
)