PLEASE fix desktop app performance on macOS!! Constant high CPU usage and memory leaks!
I'm running Teams desktop app on macOS Catalina and the performance is TERRIBLE! If I get on a single 1-on-1 video call, the fan on my 2017 MacBook Pro starts spinning like crazy, CPU usage goes up to about 85%, and app begins to use over 1GB of RAM! To put it in perspective, I can get on a Zoom call with 10 other people, CPU usage is at less than 20%, and memory usage never passes 300MB
I've read on other forums to disable GPU acceleration in the settings, but that has only marginally helped.
Please fix your app!

Thank you for your reports. We released client and service updates this week, that address many MacOS-specific performance issues. We are also aware of recent performance issues with Microsoft Teams meetings, especially on laptops and when using external monitors.
The team is working to resolve these issues. In the meantime, please find troubleshooting information here: https://docs.microsoft.com/microsoftteams/troubleshoot/known-issues/teams-slow-video-meetings-laptops-4k.
208 comments
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Anonymous commented
Teams is absolutely killing my i7 Mac Mini as soon as I enter a video call. Zoom/FaceTime/etc. all work fine but Teams has a massive issue. The fan is almost never on, as soon as a Teams video call starts CPU goes crazy and the fan kicks in.
It genuinely might just be me, but it's getting worse.
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Anonymous commented
During video calls my quad core i7 MBP with 16gb RAM becomes virtually unusable. For a bug that's been open since April, this is very disappointing.
I don't understand how it's acceptable for a company to be able to get away with making customers pay for software that completely cripples your computer when you try to use it to do what it's designed for! Very, very poor indeed.
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Timothy Odell commented
What about WINDOWs client? That thing is performing very poorly on many machines in our environment (including mine)
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Tommiy commented
Look at all the news of expanding teams to do other things and I think the answer is clear. Mac is such a small market that they don't care about teams running on it. They are more focused on adding new features and capabilities that will run on windows and expanding teams to larger markets. That is all very clear. Do the same thing that most mac users have been forced to do with macos and look for alternatives and work arounds to the issue and simply don't expect that it will be fixed. Their could be a reasonable market for a new interface to teams for mac users for instance. Rejoice in the fact that a new market is being exposed to be filled.
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FUD commented
I looked on the Teams roadmap and improving performance and reducting memory usage are not on the list of items being planned or worked on.
Why the deception Microsoft?
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Anonymous commented
Any joy? I've nothing to add which hasn't been added elsewhere. Microsoft needs to sort this.
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Edwin commented
Video performance of Teams in video calls is terrible, i.e. each time I move I look like I am being sucked into a digital black hole. Cannot be used for meetings/interviews/calls with business clients.
Disabling GPU has minimal changes. Pauzing OneDrive sync seems to help in creating less lag, but only some.
2017 MacBookPro with external 23" monitor. -
Tommiy commented
Electron and video encoding seems to be the issue. There are other electron based meeting apps that have exactly the same problem with video and high CPU. Given the other thread in User Voice has been running for 2 years on this topic its unlikely to be fixed by the looks without completely changing the app or fixing the underlying issues.
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Rade Martinović commented
It really feels that the choice of the UI technology is not right for app as Teams. I fear that total rewrite of the UI is in order.
However, screenshare and voice are stable and clear and nice.
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Anonymous commented
Same here. Fan starting with usage of Team on a high spec MacBook Pro 16 with one of the most expensive graphic cards (Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB). Mac OS activity monitors shows that Teams is at very high usage of CPU (8 core machine). Worse when system is connected to external Apple XDR display. This is annoying...
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Anonymous commented
Still got this problem... Mac Pro 2017 13 inch... eats loads of CPU... fan goes mad... cant hear other people in Teams call...
Come on MS people, step up... this is a real problem... get one of your big brains there to breath some magic on it pleaseInterestingly it only got a big problem for me when I attached a 32inch HD monitor to Mac.... not an unreasonable thing to do....
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Anonymous commented
Chiming in too. I am running a 2019 MacBook air w/ Big Sur. MS Teams Desktop app virtually unusable. Heard that web app is a workaround but that is now blocked by latest Safari update. Please fix!
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Chris commented
I would like to pile on to this thread. Please optimize Teams so that it doesn't run fans constantly on a 16" macbook pro. Thank you
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Ghislain Touraine commented
Looking forward to this update. Any date for this release ? Thank you
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Rob commented
Such a garbage app.
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Tommiy commented
I tried the web browser on my mac and get the same high CPU results. I guess that the cause here is that Teams is built on electron and the issue is with that. A quick google search will result in the same high cpu usage complaint for other video applications built with electron. So I guess the answer here is that this will be the way that teams works and the only potential real answer is to use something else. There is 2 UserVoice feedback items for this issue, the other has been open since Dec 2018 so I think its safe to say that after 2 years this will not be fixed.
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Karsh Sahay commented
Still pretty bad. I'm resorting to using the mobile app instead of the desktop app
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Tommiy commented
I held my breath this morning in hope that the upgrade to 1.3.00.30874 would do some thing to fix this issue. After so long i thought maybe. However, on the surface there is no performance improvement after the upgrade. Still a very bad experience and high cpu use.
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Ian commented
BS. The main "Teams is using 600MB and super slow" user voice request has been open for 4 years and Microsoft's first "working on it" comment is from 4 years ago.
No improvement and no 25% reduction in memory usage.
Liars.
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Hans Meiser commented
Hi,
"partially done"?
Sorry, but please remove this label, beause there's been no improvement at all for months.
Thanks,
Hans