9to5Mac⁠58%

Mac beach balls and unresponsive trackpad? This fix seems to work ⁠78%

By Ben Lovejoy⁠70%

7/20/2026, 11:34:31 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Confirmation Bias, and Hasty Generalization, with Anecdotal as the most egregious example at 35.7% saturation with 140 hits. Analysis detected 1,039 faulty-reasoning hits from 392 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 69.5% and a BS Rank of ⁠78% (4,873 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 77.70% of the article peer group.

There have been growing complaints about users experiencing beach balls on the Mac when running macOS 26.5, with some also saying that their trackpad becomes completely unresponsive for several seconds at a time. 
Activity Monitor typically reveals three culprits, and there does now appear to be a reliable solution to the problem … 
I last month highlighted the issue, speculating that Apple Intelligence photo scanning might be the cause. 
Checking Activity Monitor typically reveals high CPU usage with one, two, or three processes. 
One process was variously using anything from 50% up to 150%: mediaanalysisd. 
Googling this found a number of users complaining about the same issue, with others seeing high CPU usage also for kernel_task and corespotlightd. 
Michael Simon also fell victim to this. 
At any moment, my Mac will freeze, with my trackpad becoming unresponsive and a spinning beach ball replacing my cursor. 
It only lasts a few seconds, but on the worst days, it happens dozens of times an hour and renders the trackpad completely unresponsive, as if my MacBook were shut down. 
Each occurrence lasts no more than a few seconds, but it’s enough of an annoyance to severely cut down on my productivity. 
He tried a number of unsuccessful approaches before finally finding one that works: deleting the ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight folder. 
That of course means that the Mac has to rebuild Spotlight, but he says two weeks later the issue hasn’t returned. 
My own experience is limited to less than a day, but I too have so far found no recurrences of the issue. 
If you are happy to wait for your Spotlight data to be rebuilt, here’s how to delete the data: 
Open a Finder window 
From the Go menu select Go to Folder… 
Paste in: ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight 
CMD-A to select all and then right-click any item and select Move to Trash/Bin 
Right-click on the trash can and select Empty Trash/Bin 
Confirm when prompted 
If you’ve been experiencing this issue, please let us know in the comments whether this also works for you. 
Apple products on Amazon Renewed 
Official Apple Store on Amazon 
Discounted AirPods Pro 3 
Wireless CarPlay adapter 
AirTag holders and accessories 
Mac Pro-style Mac mini casing 
NordVPN – privacy-first VPN with no logs and independent audits to verify 
Photo by Ed Robertson on Unsplash 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 25.3%Ben Lovejoy: 5.4%9to5Mac: 2.7%Confirmation Bias25.3%This article: 4.1%Ben Lovejoy: 1.8%9to5Mac: 2.2%Anchoring Bias4.1%This article: 16.1%Ben Lovejoy: 3.8%9to5Mac: 2.8%Availability Heuristic16.1%This article: 3.6%Ben Lovejoy: 1.9%9to5Mac: 1.0%Representativeness Heuristic3.6%This article: 4.3%Ben Lovejoy: 0.5%9to5Mac: 0.3%Hindsight Bias4.3%This article: 14.3%Ben Lovejoy: 3.7%9to5Mac: 2.9%Overconfidence Bias14.3%This article: 1.5%Ben Lovejoy: 5.4%9to5Mac: 5.3%Framing Effect1.5%This article: 11.5%Ben Lovejoy: 1.2%9to5Mac: 1.3%Loss Aversion11.5%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.8%9to5Mac: 0.7%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.0%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 6.6%Ben Lovejoy: 4.0%9to5Mac: 3.4%Optimism Bias6.6%This article: 5.1%Ben Lovejoy: 3.6%9to5Mac: 1.9%Pessimism Bias5.1%This article: 28.8%Ben Lovejoy: 8.5%9to5Mac: 4.6%Negativity Bias28.8%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.6%9to5Mac: 0.7%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 1.0%9to5Mac: 0.4%Fundamental Attribution Error0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.1%9to5Mac: 0.0%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.6%9to5Mac: 0.3%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.2%9to5Mac: 0.1%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 4.3%Ben Lovejoy: 2.5%9to5Mac: 3.5%Halo Effect4.3%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.0%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 13.5%Ben Lovejoy: 2.3%9to5Mac: 1.8%Recency Bias13.5%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.3%9to5Mac: 0.4%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.2%9to5Mac: 0.1%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.2%9to5Mac: 0.1%Straw Man0.0%This article: 3.1%Ben Lovejoy: 5.5%9to5Mac: 3.6%Appeal to Authority3.1%This article: 4.8%Ben Lovejoy: 1.7%9to5Mac: 1.4%False Dilemma4.8%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.8%9to5Mac: 0.6%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.1%9to5Mac: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 21.2%Ben Lovejoy: 8.7%9to5Mac: 4.8%Hasty Generalization21.2%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.1%Red Herring0.0%This article: 10.7%Ben Lovejoy: 2.2%9to5Mac: 0.8%Bandwagon10.7%This article: 5.1%Ben Lovejoy: 3.1%9to5Mac: 2.2%Appeal to Emotion5.1%This article: 4.1%Ben Lovejoy: 1.3%9to5Mac: 0.6%Begging the Question4.1%This article: 13.8%Ben Lovejoy: 2.2%9to5Mac: 1.9%Post Hoc (False Cause)13.8%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.0%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 1.0%9to5Mac: 0.4%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.1%9to5Mac: 0.0%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.1%9to5Mac: 0.1%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 35.7%Ben Lovejoy: 4.2%9to5Mac: 2.4%Anecdotal35.7%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.1%9to5Mac: 0.0%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 2.2%9to5Mac: 1.9%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.2%9to5Mac: 0.1%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.3%9to5Mac: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 4.5%9to5Mac: 2.4%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.4%9to5Mac: 0.4%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 11.7%Ben Lovejoy: 6.4%9to5Mac: 6.0%Biased Writer Voice11.7%This article: 6.1%Ben Lovejoy: 3.7%9to5Mac: 2.1%Indoctrination6.1%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.0%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ben Lovejoy: 0.0%9to5Mac: 0.0%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 9.7%Ben Lovejoy: 10.6%9to5Mac: 15.7%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…9.7%

392 words analyzed.

Speakers

5speakers8.9%attributed speech357writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 6 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 33 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 16 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 0.0% coverageMichael Simon • 7 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 4 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 8 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 3 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 9 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 3 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 19 words • 0.0% coverageAmazon Renewed • 5 words • 100.0% coverageAmazon • 5 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 4 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 3 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 4 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 100.0% coverageNordVPN • 12 words • 100.0% coverageEd Robertson • 6 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

NordVPN

100%flagged-word coverage
12 attributed words34% of attributed speech85% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Attempt to Sell a Product +95.5 ptsWriter: 4.5%NordVPN: 100.0%100.0%Biased Writer Voice-12.9 ptsWriter: 12.9%NordVPN: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-6.7 ptsWriter: 6.7%NordVPN: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.