My mac app has recently become slow and sluggish. How can I speed it up?

If BusyCal or BusyContacts on the mac feels slow, sluggish, or frequently shows the spinning beach ball, this may be caused by external factors such as syncing delays, large or corrupt event data, or unexpected system behavior.

Try Optimizing the Database

First, launch the app and from under the Help menu in the macOS menu bar, click on Optimize Database. Quit and relaunch. See if this makes a difference.

If this does not help, to diagnose the issue, please provide us with a CPU sample while the slowdown is happening.

Capturing a CPU Sample

To help us analyze what's causing the slowdown, follow these steps to capture a CPU sample while the app appears hung with a beach ball showing:

1. Open Activity Monitor (/Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app) or search for "Activity Monitor" using Spotlight.
2. Use the search field in Activity Monitor to look for BusyCal (or BusyContacts).
3. Once found, double-click on the app's name in the list to open a detailed view.
4. While the app is hung (e.g., the spinning beach ball appears), click the Sample button in the lower-left corner of the Activity Monitor window.
5. After the sampling completes, click Save, then save the text file to your Desktop.
6. Zip the text file and attach it to your support request when contacting us.

This information will help us pinpoint the cause of the slowdown and suggest an appropriate fix.

Additional Troubleshooting Steps

If you experience frequent slowdowns, you can try the following:

• Restart your Mac – Sometimes, a simple reboot clears memory issues or background processes affecting performance.
• Check CPU and Memory Usage – In Activity Monitor, check if BusyCal is consuming unusually high CPU or memory.
• Turning off Accounts - If you have many accounts added to BusyCal, it may be a single event out of many accounts that's misbehaving. Open BusyCal Settings > Accounts and uncheck the Enable this account option for all accounts. Now quit and relaunch the app and re-enable each account one by one to discover which account is causing the slow-down and then reach out to us.
• Rebuild the database – If the issue persists, resetting BusyCal’s database may help. Contact support for guidance.

If the issue continues after trying these steps, please send us a CPU sample for further analysis.