Performance modes

A performance mode sets how much of your Mac's spare capacity Storage Studio may use for its background work, and how lively its windows are. The default, Automatic, adjusts by itself from moment to moment: it eases off when your Mac is busy, warm or low on battery, and pauses background work altogether under heavy load. You can also pick a mode yourself.

Where to change it

Open the More menu → Storage Profile…. The current mode is shown as a small menu in the window's header — for example Auto · Good. Hover it to see why Storage Studio chose that mode; click it to pick another.

The modes

There's one more mode you never choose: Survival. Storage Studio enters it on its own when your Mac is under heavy load, pauses its background work, and leaves it again by itself.

The share is always of what's free at that moment, not of your whole Mac — so when you're busy, Storage Studio uses very little. See Why Storage Studio works slowly on purpose.

How Automatic decides

Automatic looks again about once a minute, and straight away when your Mac's temperature changes or you switch Low Power Mode on or off. The first match wins:

%% caption: How Automatic chooses a mode
flowchart TD
  A[Automatic checks your Mac] --> B{Very hot, or almost no processor time free?}
  B -->|Yes| S[Survival - background work paused]
  B -->|No| C{Warming up, Reduce Motion on, or battery below 20 percent?}
  C -->|Yes| L[Light]
  C -->|No| D{Mac busy, with less than a fifth of its processor free?}
  D -->|Yes| L
  D -->|No| E{Plugged in, not in Low Power Mode, a high-end Mac and mostly idle?}
  E -->|Yes| R[Rich]
  E -->|No| G[Good]

• Rich is only chosen on a plugged-in Mac with at least 10 processor cores and 16 GB of memory, while it's mostly idle.
• Low Power Mode doesn't force Light. Storage Studio stays on Good, with its animations switched off and background work cut back further.
• Because a short burst of activity can tip Automatic into Survival, it can stay there for about a minute after things calm down, until the next check.

What pauses

In Survival and Minimum the Storage Profile shows "Charts are paused in this power-saving mode."

Things you start yourself still run in every mode — for example Back up now or Scan now in the Duplicates window. Because Minimum also stops Junk Yard capture and Bridge, choose it only when you want Storage Studio kept to its core work; switch back to Automatic — adapts to your Mac to resume everything.

Being told about it

Storage Studio adds a short note to its notifications so a quiet app doesn't look stuck:

• Storage Studio paused itself — in Survival. It resumes automatically when things settle.
• Running light to stay out of your way — when effects are off, with the reason, such as "Low battery — saving power".
• Performance: Automatic · Good (or whichever mode) — the rest of the time.

See also: Battery and power · Is Storage Studio slowing my Mac down? · Your Storage Profile · Background Activity and Job Insights