Sentinely
When Slack, Teams, or Discord slows your Mac
Chat and work apps such as Slack, Teams, Discord, and Notion can grow the longer they stay open. A normal restart gives the memory back and keeps your conversations.
Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, and Notion are built from many processes, and they can grow the longer they stay open. Left running for days in the background, they can hold enough memory to push the rest of the Mac into swap.
Sentinely notices when one of these apps is in the background and holding a lot of memory, and says whether it is still growing. The fix is a normal restart: the app quits the usual way and reopens, and your conversations are still there.
Steps
Open the check
If a chat app is holding a lot of memory, Sentinely lists it with an estimate. Because these apps run as several processes, the estimate is "up to".
Review the restart
The fix quits the app normally and opens it again. Sentinely re-checks the processes just before it acts.
Read the receipt
The receipt shows what the old processes gave back and what changed in memory pressure and swap. A freshly started app uses some memory again, so the receipt reports what was measured, not the estimate.
Before you start
- Sentinely does not suggest restarting Slack, Teams, Discord, Zoom, FaceTime, or WhatsApp while your microphone or camera is in use.
- An app that is restarted grows again over time. If the same app keeps coming back to the top of the list, it is worth knowing, and the menu bar monitor will tell you.
Questions
Will I lose messages?
No. The app quits the normal way and reopens. Your conversations live in the app's account, not in the memory it was holding.
Can Autopilot restart chat apps for me?
No. Autopilot never quits apps. Restarting one is always a fix you review and run yourself.