Forum Discussion

cortig's avatar
cortig
Explorer | Level 4
3 months ago
Solved

Electron framework in the desktop app leading to MacOS Tahoe slowdowns

Application Affected
Dropbox
Device
Mac
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
macOS 26
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
234.3.5480

Question or Issue

Recent discussions have identified an issue with the electron framework leading to significant slowdowns in Mac OS 26 (Tahoe). 

You can see a good description of the problem here: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/09/30/electron-apps-causing-system-wide-lag-on-tahoe/

And this page offers scripts to identify apps that use the _cornerMask to draw drop shadows for windows in Electron apps (which triggers the slowdowns through WindowServer): https://gist.github.com/tkafka/e3eb63a5ec448e9be6701bfd1f1b1e58#file-detect-electron-apps-with-macos-lag-sh

I played around with he scripts and it looks like Dropbox 234.3.5480 is one of the affected Electron apps…

I'd be great to tweak the embedded framework (or use one of the newer, corrected frameworks) to eliminate the issue in Dropbox :-)

desktop
Mac
  • Neal's avatar
    Neal
    2 months ago

    Hi everyone! 

    Thank you for your patience, ir's much appreciated.

    I can confirm that a fix for this issue is now live in our most up to date stable build, 235.4.5905.

    Can you all try updating and then test your performance and letting me know how you get on?

15 Replies

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  • Neal's avatar
    Neal
    Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
    3 months ago

    Hi everyone!

    Thank you for letting us know about this. I can confirm our team is aware of this and will be rolling out a fix very soon. I'll monitor the situation and let you know as soon as there is an update.

  • Robert R.73's avatar
    Robert R.73
    New member | Level 2
    3 months ago

    Walter​ jumping in here...I still see these slowdowns on 26.0.1, and I am assuming it's dropbox because the other Electron framework apps I use have all been updated to the latest Electron framework.

    There is a small chance it could be another app about which I'm unaware, but I believe 234.4.5591 is still not using Electron's most recent framework.  Can you confirm one way or the other?

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    3 months ago

    Hi cortig, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

    We appreciate the feedback on this matter in relation to the Dropbox desktop application slowing down a Mac OS device running Tahoe.
    We take all comments and reports into consideration when improving the Dropbox app and services.

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