Spotify Slow on Mac

Spotify is one of the biggest music and podcast platforms in the world. Although Apple offers its own service, many users still prefer Spotify both on mobile devices, as well as Macs. Many users run Spotify in the background, while they are working from home or simply relaxing. However, after a while, Spotify may start to run noticeably slower on the Mac system. The decrease in performance might be caused by improperly discarded cache files. 

While you are listening to Spotify, the application creates cache files on the boot drive. That way, if the user wants to listen to the specific song or podcast again in the same session, Spotify can run it without having to access the Internet and streaming it all over again. These cache files are supposed to be deleted after Spotify is closed completely. If the application is kept running for a prolonged time, the cache could balloon and start affecting Spotify's performance. 

Limit the data Spotify streams

1. Launch Spotify on your Mac.
2. Open the Spotify menu and choose 'Preferences.'
3. Locate the 'Music Quality' section.
4. From the drop-down menu, select either the 'Low' or 'Normal' option. Doing so will reduce the bitrate of the content streamed by Spotify leading to a smaller size of the cache files created in the process. 

Clear Spotify's cache

1. Close Spotify completely.
2. Open Finder, select the 'Go' menu, and choose 'Go to Folder.'
3. In the new window, type or paste ~/Library/Application Support/Spotify/prefs and hit 'Go.'
4. Now, either right-click or Control-click the prefs file.
5. From the available options, select 'Open With,' followed by Text Edit. You can use another similar text editor app that you have installed on the Mac.
6. Scroll down to the bottom of the text inside the file. Paste, or type, storage.size=1024 in a new line. The 1024 number specifies the new maximum size of the cache in MB. You can adjust that number to better suit your specific needs. 
7. Save and then close the file.
8. Locate the PersistentChace folder inside the Spotify folder and drag it to the Trash.
9. You can now launch Spotify.