Does yabai solve the lag after switching spaces

[Allaman]

Hello,

I think about installing yabai because of [this]https://piunikaweb.com/2021/12/14/macos-12-monterey-workspace-switching-animation-lag-with-promotion/) issue with the (input) lag after switching spaces. My main concerns with yabai are, besides disabling SIP, ...

• if yabai can solve this problem and the focus switching is instant (as I was used to on Linux)
• if I can disable the tiling feature for all apps. I played around with tiling WMs on Linux (i3, awesome) a couple of times but they do not match my workflow.

I also asked the question on Reddit with some more details.

Any feedback is appreciated!

Thanks

[tg0h]

hello!

• yes, if you disable SIP, switching spaces happens instantly
• to disable the auto tiling feature (i'm assuming you're referring to the binary space partition feature where new windows are automatically placed on the screen), you will need to tell yabai not to manage the window

yabai -m rule --add app='^System Information$' manage=off 

(btw, I used your dotfiles repo a few months back to finally set up my neovim for development, many thanks! 🙏 :) )

[peppy]

To clarify, if you want to disable BSP for all windows (I think that's what the OP was after) you need to change the mode on the space itself:

yabai -m space 4 --layout float

where 4 is the space you want to set to "floating" ie. unmanaged.

[koekeishiya]

To disable tiling globally, just use yabai -m config layout float

[Allaman]

Thanks for your hints. Meanwhile I disabled SIP and configured yabai and skhd. Everything works flawless and snappy.

• yabairc
• skhdrc

btw, I used your dotfiles repo a few months back to finally set up my neovim for development, many thanks!

Glad to hear!

[nahuel]

@tg0h if you disable SIP then switching spaces happens instantly, without having yabai installed?

[peppy]

No, you need to have yabai loaded for this to be the case.

[mil-ad]

I have SIP disabled and there's still a significant delay when switching workspaces/desktops through yabai/skhd.

It does however seem to be app-dependent. It usually happens when firefox is in the source/destination desktop.

[Allaman]

yabai-v5.0.2

[Allaman]

Looks like I spoke too soon. :( Suddenly, I experienced a notable lag even after a reboot and with no application opened...

[mil-ad]

😢

[Allaman]

I figured it out why, maybe it is the case for you as well...!

I just recently added command -v gopass >/dev/null 2>&1 && export TOKEN=$(gopass show ....) to my .zshenv. Looks like this is evaluated every time I invoke yabai -m space focus next/prev causing the lag. After removing it, I got my snappiness back.

TIL: Keep your shell lag free to keep yabai lag free 😆

[aaw5017]

Thanks so much for this info! I just installed yabai and skhd on a new Apple M2 machine. Noticed lag while switching spaces, and after switching all of my logic from .zshenv to .zshrc, the lag went away completely. Awesome find

[mil-ad]

Interesting! I just tried adding a sleep 10 to my .zshrc and it doesn't seem to affect workspace switching.

[Allaman]

Yeah, but I added it to my .zshenv. Just confirmed it by adding sleep 5 to it ...

[tgienger]

Is there a workaround that will allow disabling SIP and still be able to run ios apps?

[psygo]

How was your experience with disabling SIP so far? Have you guys faced any malware threats yet?

I feel so annoyed by this lag in switching spaces, but disabling protection seems dodgy to me. Kinda bonkers that Apple made switching spaces so tied to security.

[mil-ad]

I have SIP disabled space switching is fine. But do not expect i3 in Linux speeds, it's still slow.

[psygo]

That's so frustrating to hear. I really love i3 and Linux WTM.

[Allaman]

I had no issues with SIP disabled, and the switching is now useable. Definitely, it is not as snappy as my i3 ThinkPad, but I guess you can't really compare a minimal window manager with macOS ;)

Maybe https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace is for you. I don't know if it addresses the lag. I don't plan to switch because I don't like that they are not using the macOS default workspace system.

[psygo]

I'm on MacOS Sonoma 14.3 and yabai v6.0.6, trying to configure this thing after disabling SIP, and following the configure scripting addition documentation, but it seems to not be working.

$ sudo yabai --load-sa
sudo: sorry, you are not allowed to set the following environment variables: TERMINFO

Does anyone know what's going on?

[tg0h]

I get the same warning on sonoma 14.2, yabai 6.0.6. i disabled SIP. yabai works for me...

[psygo]

Yabai still works for me. But, even with the --load-sa message, is it working? I mean, do you get no lag?

[tg0h]

yups, i don't get any lag - switching spaces is instantaneous

[spaceunifyfifty]

One cause of slow yabai commands is actually skhd being slowed down by fish shell. I solved it here #2448