I Disabled Animations on My Mac, and It Feels So Much Snappier

macOS is packed with smooth, fluid animations that some look beauteous and assistance usher you astir the system. However, if you multitask heavily, these animations tin commencement to consciousness a small sluggish. I disabled mine, and it made my strategy look a batch much responsive.

How to Disable Animations connected a Mac

I'm a big idiosyncratic of Spaces connected my Mac. I’ve got galore of these virtual desktops acceptable up, and I set circumstantial apps to unfastened successful circumstantial Spaces. It's the champion mode to multitask connected my 13-inch MacBook screen.

But it means that during my moving day, I’m perpetually flipping backmost and distant from 1 desktop to another. While the animation effect this uses looks precise nice, it makes things consciousness a small slower than I'd like, peculiarly erstwhile swiping betwixt Spaces utilizing the trackpad.

I fixed this occupation by disabling the animations. You bash it by going to Settings > Accessibility > Display and past toggling "Reduce Motion" on.

This replaces the sideways scrolling animation with a overmuch quicker modulation betwixt 2 Spaces. It's a batch cleaner and much responsive erstwhile swiping, arsenic good arsenic erstwhile Command+Tabbing betwixt 2 apps.

I besides usage it successful operation with keyboard shortcuts, which marque things consciousness adjacent quicker. You tin alteration these astatine Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts > Mission Control. Expand the "Mission Control" drop-down and alteration the shortcuts labeled "Switch to Desktop 1," "Switch to Desktop 2," and truthful on.

Speed Up the Dock Animations

The Reduce Motion enactment works successful a fewer different places arsenic good but doesn’t region each the animations moving passim macOS, truthful I removed a fewer much manually utilizing the Terminal. This mightiness dependable technical, but it's simple—just paste successful the commands.

I've got my Dock acceptable to Hidden, truthful I adjusted the velocity of the animation for erstwhile it opens and closes. Open Terminal, paste successful the following, and deed Enter.

defaults constitute com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.2; killall Dock

This makes the Dock look much quickly. The "0.2" successful the bid is however agelong the animation takes successful seconds. You tin alteration that fig to velocity it up oregon dilatory it down. If you acceptable it to "0," you volition crook the animation disconnected wholly and the Dock volition drawback unfastened and closed. It’s excessively abrupt for my taste, but it's worthy experimenting with.

This is 1 of galore ways you tin customize your Mac Dock. To revert the change, paste this bid into Terminal:

defaults delete com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier; killall Dock

Speed Up the Launchpad Animations

I besides customized Launchpad by expanding the animation speeds utilizing 2 sets of terminal commands. The archetypal acceptable makes Launchpad unfastened and adjacent much quickly. Paste this into Terminal:

defaults constitute com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -float 0.2; defaults constitute com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -float 0.2; killall Dock

To undo these changes, usage this:

defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration; defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration; killall Dock

My 2nd tweak was to velocity up scrolling betwixt pages successful Launchpad, utilizing this bid successful Terminal:

defaults constitute com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration -float 0.2; killall Dock

This is the bid to undo that change:

defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration; killall Dock

In some cases, you tin acceptable the "0.2" to immoderate fig you want. "0" turns disconnected animations entirely; "0.5" would marque the animation past for fractional a second. You tin play astir with the numbers to spot what works champion for you.

How Reducing Animations Makes Your Mac Seem Quicker

Cutting backmost and disabling the animations connected my Mac doesn't marque it each that overmuch faster, but it decidedly makes the strategy feel snappier. It feels a batch much responsive, particularly erstwhile multitasking and switching betwixt aggregate apps and windows.

It does instrumentality a small spot of clip to get utilized to, though, due to the fact that animations are specified a large portion of the macOS experience. And they aren’t each oculus candy either. Animations are determination to assistance you navigate your mode done the strategy and stay oriented. Taking them distant tin marque things confusing astatine first, particularly erstwhile utilized with Spaces.

With the animations successful place, Spaces are efficaciously lined up horizontally; with the animations disabled, it's much similar they're stacked connected apical of each other.

For this reason, I’d suggest you effort it retired and instrumentality with it for a while. You astir apt won’t similar it astatine first, but it didn't instrumentality maine agelong to get utilized to it.

---

You tin besides trim immoderate animations successful iOS, astatine Settings > Accessibility > Motion. But for this and macOS, they're chiefly accessibility features, and Apple isn't keen connected allowing this benignant of customization.

Other platforms bash alteration it. You tin turn disconnected animations connected Windows 11, and there's a hidden mounting to bash it connected Android too.