I’ve been using Airtable for project management and something strange caught my attention. When I access Airtable through Safari or Chrome on my MacBook Air M2, everything loads extremely quickly and operates smoothly. However, the official Mac desktop app is much slower in comparison. The same database takes longer to load, scrolling feels sluggish, and transitioning between views has noticeable delays. Since my laptop runs everything else seamlessly, I don’t believe it’s a hardware problem. Has anyone else experienced this performance gap between the browser and the Mac desktop app? I’m curious if there might be a setting that I’m overlooking or if this is just the expected behavior. It’s a bit frustrating because I prefer using desktop applications, yet the web version clearly outperforms it for me.
This performance discrepancy actually makes sense when you understand how these applications handle data rendering. The desktop app uses its own rendering engine that processes all the visual elements locally, while browsers have highly optimized JavaScript engines that handle dynamic content more efficiently. I noticed this difference became more pronounced with larger databases containing multiple attachment fields or complex formulas. In my experience, the desktop version struggles particularly with view switching because it attempts to pre-load more data than necessary. The browser version is smarter about lazy loading and only renders what’s currently visible. If you’re working with databases over a few thousand records, the web version will almost always outperform the desktop app. The trade-off is that you lose some keyboard shortcuts and native Mac integration, but the speed difference usually makes it worthwhile.
Been dealing with similar slowdowns on different platforms for years. The desktop app is basically a wrapper around a web view, but it handles memory management differently than your browser.
Try clearing the app’s cache first. On Mac, quit Airtable completely, then go to ~/Library/Application Support/Airtable and delete the cache folders. Restart the app after that.
Also check if you have any browser extensions that might be helping performance in Safari/Chrome but obviously aren’t available in the desktop app. Things like ad blockers can actually speed up data-heavy apps.
If the cache clearing doesn’t work, there’s a good troubleshooting video that covers most of the common fixes:
One more thing - the desktop app sometimes gets stuck using integrated graphics instead of dedicated GPU on some Macs. You can force it to use high performance mode in System Preferences > Battery > Energy if that’s available on your M2.
yeah this is a known issue with electron-based apps like airtable’s desktop version. they’re basically running a chromium browser under the hood but with extra overhead. honestly just stick with the web version if its working better - you’re not missing much from the desktop app anyway and browser performance is usually more optimized.
I ran into this exact issue about six months ago and it drove me crazy for weeks. After some digging, I discovered that the desktop app was using way more RAM than it should have been. What fixed it for me was completely uninstalling the desktop app and doing a fresh install from the Mac App Store rather than downloading directly from Airtable’s website. Apparently there can be some caching issues with the direct download version. Also worth checking your Activity Monitor while both versions are running to see the resource usage difference. In my case, the desktop app was consuming nearly 800MB of RAM while the web version used maybe 200MB for the same database. The fresh install brought the desktop performance back in line with the browser version.
Had the same frustrating experience with my MacBook Pro M1 last year. The culprit turned out to be background sync processes that the desktop app runs constantly but the web version handles more efficiently through your browser’s network stack. Desktop version tries to maintain offline capabilities which creates unnecessary overhead when you’re always connected anyway. What solved it for me was disabling offline sync in the desktop app preferences - there’s a setting buried in the advanced options that controls local data caching. Performance immediately improved to match the web version after turning that off. You lose the ability to work offline but honestly that’s rarely needed for most workflows. Worth trying before going through the hassle of reinstalling everything.