Big sur 11.2.2 very lagging on 2019 Macbook Pro

Solution 1:

Here is how I would back date a newer Big Sur system to 11.2.1

If you have a Time Machine Backup from before you ran the upgrade. That means you can erase the Mac - get the installer for 11.2.1 and then erase / install in a fairly straight-forward manner.

Once 11.2.1 is running, migrate data from the Time Machine snapshot or backup interval before the upgrade (or whatever your custom backup procedure entails). If you don't have a backup - make one now so you can hand migrate some of the easy apps and files that are compatible with a downgrade - some apps like Photos databases don't necessarily work backwards so you'd need to handle those errors and issues one by one.

Also - Catalina may have made a snapshot of your system that’s usable as a backup, so you would just boot to recovery and restore the system to that shapshot and not even need to worry about an installer.

  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015

And in macOS High Sierra or later, another snapshot is saved before installing any macOS update.

If you need to make a bootable 11.2.1 installer, here's how:

  1. Delete any Install macOS Big Sur apps you have in /Applications (or copy them to an external drive)
  2. Open terminal.app or another tool to get to the command line and issue this command

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 11.2.1

Once the installer is there, follow this guide to make an installable USB for 11.2.1

  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Then follow this guide to erase install.

  • https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496

Solution 2:

From your Activity Monitor screenshots, it looks like you're using Chrome. Chrome is notorious for excessive resource consumption on macOS. I would suggest switching to Safari and using it for a few days to see if your lag disappears.