# Plex App on Mac stutters **URL:** \ **Category:** Plex Players\ **Tags:** player-mac\ **Created:** [May 30, 2025, 9:13am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674 "2025-05-30T09:13:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Salega96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Salega96](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Salega96)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 9:13am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/1 "2025-05-30T09:13:26Z")
I only have that problem with one TV show I’m trying to watch, and it’s only on the Mac Plex app. It works fine in the browser and on my other devices, but for some reason, it stutters on the Mac app. CPU usage also ramps up to 100%. I couldn’t reproduce the same issue with any other file. It’s a 4K HDR10+ Profile A MKV file. ---
**Author:** ![BigWheel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bigwheel/32/78783_2.png) [@BigWheel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigWheel)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 3:08pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/2 "2025-05-30T15:08:56Z")
Can you get the [desktop player logs](https://support.plex.tv/articles/windows-mac-app-logs/) after it happened with that file. Hopefully it has the events same time frame as your logs from server. Is the server transcoding or direct play. ---
**Author:** ![Achilles](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/achilles/32/16864_2.png) [@Achilles](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Achilles)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 3:12pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/3 "2025-05-30T15:12:19Z")
Do you have low power mode enabled in macOS? ---
**Author:** ![Salega96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Salega96](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Salega96)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 3:33pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/4 "2025-05-30T15:33:02Z")
No it’s disabled. ---
**Author:** ![Salega96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Salega96](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Salega96)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 3:35pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/5 "2025-05-30T15:35:33Z")
Direct play audio and video. ---
**Author:** ![Salega96](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Salega96](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Salega96)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 11:02pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/6 "2025-05-30T23:02:26Z")
UPDATE It also stutters on the Windows Plex app, also direct play. ---
**Author:** ![XxUnkn0wnxX](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/xxunkn0wnxx/32/235514_2.png) [@XxUnkn0wnxX](https://forums.plex.tv/u/XxUnkn0wnxX)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2025, 8:56pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/7 "2025-06-06T20:56:05Z")
yep same here I thought it was just me, I’m on an old mac iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), OS: 11.7.10 From my testing, the current build: `1.109.0.329-ea562b95` is like the laggiest interface ever when playing video files, direct or not direct, like I can hear the audio play for a good 5-10s before the video even starts & trying to open UI elements like the settings to change the subs or audio lang takes soo long to respond. even pausing feels like cancer.. purging `$HOME/Library/Caches/Plex` & `$HOME/Library/"Application Support"/Plex` & re-initlise Plex build `1.104.0.241-2164c90a` from scratch its all good. & if I initlise Plex build `1.109.0.329-ea562b95` & just switch back to the older Build before purging those 2 folders it still a laggy mess. But something happens within those 2 folders on the latest build, it breaks/corrupts something & the UI is non-responsive.. & this does not matter what video file I play, it can even be a low rest 480p 30s clip & it still lags so hard. here is the old build for mac if anyone wants/needs till plex fixes their broken build. > **[Dropbox](https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/t8x7bq0d2czbkgn4pct3w/Plex-1.104.0.241-2164c90a.zip?rlkey=bkideqwopyirncbz8hyq7svl2&e=1&dl=0)** ---
**Author:** ![XxUnkn0wnxX](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/xxunkn0wnxx/32/235514_2.png) [@XxUnkn0wnxX](https://forums.plex.tv/u/XxUnkn0wnxX)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/8 "2025-06-06T21:39:11Z")
@BigWheel, here are my log files if it helps. [Plex App Logs (1.109.0.329-ea562b95).zip](https://forums.plex.tv/uploads/short-url/bgJKCsxXbJOz3e9UoG9IB6WN6Gj.zip) (2.3 MB) However, I think I found the issue, it’s to do with the UI windowHeight, windowWidth etc found in. `$HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex/plex.ini` deleting everything within the `[ui]` category & restoring to default window size & it doesn’t seem to lag but as soon as the user resizes the window or goes to full screen its over. Also on initial setup as in no Plex Folder in app support or caches (for the Mac app, not server) there is no lag on any video file but as soon as you restart the app & resize window its over, lag city here we come. ---
**Author:** ![XxUnkn0wnxX](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/xxunkn0wnxx/32/235514_2.png) [@XxUnkn0wnxX](https://forums.plex.tv/u/XxUnkn0wnxX)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/9 "2025-06-06T21:51:17Z")
This is the metadata of the video file I tested with normal home video lib in plex ```auto Video ID : 1 Format : VP9 Format profile : 0 Codec ID : V_VP9 Duration : 40 min 45 s Bit rate : 26.2 kb/s Width : 256 pixels Height : 144 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate mode : Variable Frame rate : 15.019 FPS Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.047 Stream size : 7.63 MiB (35%) Default : Yes Forced : No Color range : Limited Matrix coefficients : BT.709 Audio ID : 2 Format : AAC LC SBR Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity with Spectral Band Replication Commercial name : HE-AAC Format settings : Implicit Codec ID : A_AAC-2 Duration : 40 min 45 s Bit rate : 48.0 kb/s Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel layout : L R Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz Frame rate : 21.533 FPS (2048 SPF) Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 14.0 MiB (63%) Default : Yes Forced : No ``` I used yt-dlp to DL the lowest quality 76kbps video file: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee4oHnkXRnM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee4oHnkXRnM) 144P video file UI still lags so it don’t matter how big or how bad the video file is quality does not matter. ---
**Author:** ![BigWheel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bigwheel/32/78783_2.png) [@BigWheel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigWheel)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2025, 10:29pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/10 "2025-06-06T22:29:05Z")
Thanks for the logs and details @XxUnkn0wnxX ---
**Author:** ![gbooker02](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/gbooker02/32/9726_2.png) [@gbooker02](https://forums.plex.tv/u/gbooker02)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2025, 8:26pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/12 "2025-06-10T20:26:47Z")
See [Mac Player stuttering video playback - #12 by gbooker02](https://forums.plex.tv/t/mac-player-stuttering-video-playback/906242/12) > [@](#): > > I looked into this yesterday and it appears to have been a change in how MPV is built when we upgraded it. Several things changed in MacOS rendering so I’m not totally surprised that something like this happened but we missed that it occurred because it was working (and seems we were testing on machines that were too performant to notice the change). > > In short, if you use HTPC and look at the debug overlay, you’ll see `videotoolbox-copy` (the same occurs in Plex for Mac but you’d have to look at the logs to see this). That means it is using `videotoolbox` for hardware decoding (which is correct) but the `-copy` means the after the hardware has decoded the picture, the picture must be copied from the GPU to the CPU and then back to the GPU for display. This is why disabling hardware acceleration may help as it skips that first copy. > > I’ve gotten the newer MPV to build locally enabling `videotoolbox-gl` which is MPV’s mechanism to display the decoded picture directly in OpenGL without the copy to CPU and back. This is what was used previously and got lost. It required some modifications to MPV as it seems that it was not intended to build with the option without building the standalone application whereas we just want the library. ---
**Author:** ![snnrman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@snnrman](https://forums.plex.tv/u/snnrman)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2025, 7:16pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/13 "2025-08-06T19:16:17Z")
I have the same problem actually. v. 1.109.0, Macbook Pro M1 Pro ---
**Author:** ![XxUnkn0wnxX](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/xxunkn0wnxx/32/235514_2.png) [@XxUnkn0wnxX](https://forums.plex.tv/u/XxUnkn0wnxX)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 8:06pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/14 "2025-08-29T20:06:38Z")
This has not been fixed with ver: Plex-1.110.0.351-4e48eb83 I’m still using ver 1.104.0.241-2164c90a ☹ ---
**Author:** ![BigWheel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bigwheel/32/78783_2.png) [@BigWheel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigWheel)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 8:17pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/15 "2025-08-29T20:17:55Z")
> [@XxUnkn0wnxX](#): > > This has not been fixed with ver: Plex-1.110.0.351-4e48eb83 🙁 ok thanks. bug report shows that is the one it should have been fixed in. I’ll let folks know. I know you downgraded but since the QA folks could not reproduce anymore is it possible to get fresh logs from 1.110 version ---
**Author:** ![XxUnkn0wnxX](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/xxunkn0wnxx/32/235514_2.png) [@XxUnkn0wnxX](https://forums.plex.tv/u/XxUnkn0wnxX)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2025, 10:42pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/16 "2025-08-29T22:42:58Z")
[Plex App (1.110.0.351-4e48eb83).zip](https://forums.plex.tv/uploads/short-url/pWsygqr2JETuYlRIvVKFsrbAFOc.zip) (96.4 KB) here are fresh logs, but I suspect diagnosing this will be hard, unless you have an ancient mac like I do. it feels like my whole system lags when video playback starts, like the whole windowserver is about to crash every UI element on the system lags even finder etc.. I get a similar issues when trying to playback 4k video on youtube or trying to render HDR video knowing that my system cannot handle it. strangely CPU or memory did not spike but still unsure whats causing this lag. ---
**Author:** ![BigWheel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bigwheel/32/78783_2.png) [@BigWheel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigWheel)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2025, 12:09am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/17 "2025-08-30T00:09:08Z")
Thanks. Just wanted to double check as well. is this only when the window resizes or all the time? only in windowed mode? ---
**Author:** ![XxUnkn0wnxX](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/xxunkn0wnxx/32/235514_2.png) [@XxUnkn0wnxX](https://forums.plex.tv/u/XxUnkn0wnxX)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2025, 3:12am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/18 "2025-08-30T03:12:41Z")
It doesn’t matter; it lags whether in full-screen or windowed mode. even resetting the plex.ini file doesn’t help much anymore.. ---
**Author:** ![cortig](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/cortig/32/145050_2.png) [@cortig](https://forums.plex.tv/u/cortig)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2025, 5:29pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/19 "2025-09-03T17:29:50Z")
> it feels like my whole system lags when video playback starts, like the whole windowserver is about to crash every UI element on the system lags even finder etc.. I don’t see the videos stuttering, but there is definitely still a serious performance issue. On my 2019 16” MacBook Pro, the playback lags, the audio and video sometimes get out of sync and the fans systematically run full blast. On the same Mac, the AppleTV app doesn’t break a sweat playing 4k content… ---
**Author:** ![oryan\_dunn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/839c29/32.png) [@oryan\_dunn](https://forums.plex.tv/u/oryan_dunn)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 2:29am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/20 "2025-11-04T02:29:25Z")
I just wanted to comment that I am seeing the same behavior. On my M2 Mac mini (15.7.1) connected via gigabit ethernet, the web player works perfectly, but the desktop app (1.110.0.351-4e48eb83) has stuttery playback and a laggy UI. It didn’t used to be this way, but I haven’t used plex on my Mac in a few months. I tried downloading the 104 build linked above, but it doesn’t play at all, I get 1008 codec errors. I should also note, I see the same stutters at the same locations in videos on both my iPad and iPhone, both have the latest Plex app installed. I don’t seem to notice the stutters on my Apple TVs, and it doesn’t stutter at all on my Windows desktop (which is a 13yr old i5-3570k, no where near the horsepower of my M2 Mac mini). I’m running the latest plex server (1.42.2.10156) on my Synology DS918+ (7.2.1-69057 Update 8). Let me know if there are any logs that would be helpful. ---
**Author:** ![XxUnkn0wnxX](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/xxunkn0wnxx/32/235514_2.png) [@XxUnkn0wnxX](https://forums.plex.tv/u/XxUnkn0wnxX)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2025, 12:14am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674/21 "2025-11-07T00:14:48Z")
if you’re getting codec errors, especially if you’re just switching out the app version. its recommended you purge the cache & any codecs already downloaded in `“$HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex/Plex Media Server/”` I’ve had issues when jumping between the latest build & back again when I was testing stuff. and for good measure, I also delete the codecs folder in the server as well `“$HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/”` ensure both the server & app are fully closed. also if your running the server on synology, the recently removed support for x265 hardware decoding on their systems due to high licence fees they don’t want to pay for. so try to test with x264 video file. also try toggling “Direct Play“, “Direct Stream“ In debug settings & “Use Hardware Decoding“ in Player settings. with it on/off I do get some media that refuse to play based on the video codec with some of these on/off or choppy video with it off. I just wish they kept the plex player app on their git repo: [GitHub - plexinc/plex-media-player: Next generation Plex Desktop/Embedded Client](https://github.com/plexinc/plex-media-player) up to date & not leave it archived. having access to their latest builds would have allowed me to diagnose the issue myself if could build from source like with different MPV versions & flags etc.. there is also the [Plex HTPC](https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/?cat=plex+htpc&plat=macos#plex-app) app that could also be tested, but not a fan of the UI. [Next page](https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-app-on-mac-stutters/920674.md?page=2)