--- title: Claude Desktop starts about twice as fast now | daily.dev description: Anthropic fixed a background-launch bug in Claude Desktop that was throttling timers and dropping the JS engine into power-saving mode during startup. The fix... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/claude-desktop-starts-about-twice-as-fast-now-t9j4eezv6 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Claude Desktop starts about twice as fast now | daily.dev og:description: Anthropic fixed a background-launch bug in Claude Desktop that was throttling timers and dropping the JS engine into power-saving mode during startup. The fix... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/claude-desktop-starts-about-twice-as-fast-now-t9j4eezv6 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/T9j4EeZv6.png og:image:alt: Claude Desktop starts about twice as fast now og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Claude Desktop starts about twice as fast now **[Collections](https://daily.dev/sources/collections)** · 1 min read · 2 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Anthropic fixed a background-launch bug in Claude Desktop that was throttling timers and dropping the JS engine into power-saving mode during startup. The fix roughly doubles launch speed, with Windows p95 launch times improving about 1.7x and Mac about 2.3x. More performance improvements are reportedly planned. ## Content Anthropic shipped a fix that makes Claude Desktop launch roughly 2x faster than it did a month ago. Windows users should see p95 launch times improve by about 1.7x, and Mac users get an even bigger jump at 2.3x. The cause turned out to be a background-launch bug: when the app started in the background, its timers were getting throttled and the JS engine would drop into power-saving mode instead of running at full speed. That's fixed now, so the app boots at full speed even while the window is still hidden. A handful of smaller performance tweaks came along with it. It's a small thing, but if you have Claude Desktop open all day, a sluggish startup adds up fast. One of the Anthropic engineers who worked on it says this isn't the last pass either, more improvements are in the works. ## Questions this post answers ### Why was Claude Desktop slow to start up? Claude Desktop had a background-launch bug where its timers were throttled and the JavaScript engine dropped into power-saving mode when the app launched in the background, instead of running at full speed. Anthropic fixed this so the app now boots at full speed even while its window is still hidden, roughly doubling launch speed. _Developers relying on Claude Desktop daily can track performance fixes like this one on daily.dev._ ### How much faster does Claude Desktop launch after the recent fix? Launch times improved roughly 2x overall, with Windows users seeing about a 1.7x improvement in p95 launch times and Mac users seeing about a 2.3x improvement. The fix targeted a background-launch bug that throttled timers and forced the JS engine into power-saving mode, alongside several smaller performance tweaks. _Anyone weighing AI desktop app responsiveness can follow updates like this on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 3 discussions and 335 comments across x (as of 2026-08-19). **TL;DR:** Reaction to the faster launch time is largely overshadowed by heavy frustration with Opus 5's verbosity/quality regression, high RAM usage, usage limits, and other app bugs, with only a minority of replies actually engaging with the startup speed fix itself. **Sentiment:** 15% positive · 25% mixed · 60% skeptical **The case for** - A few people welcomed the faster boot time as a genuine, if minor, improvement. - One reply noted the fix is interesting because it came from solving a mundane backgrounded JS runtime bug rather than model/inference work. - Some acknowledged the desktop app has been steadily improving with daily updates and new features like session steering. **The pushback** - Many commenters said they'd rather see the Opus 5 model's verbosity and 'confidently wrong' behavior fixed than a faster startup. - Numerous complaints about excessive RAM/memory usage from idle Claude Code/Desktop instances, with some saying it makes their machines unusable. - Several people reported cancelling subscriptions or switching to competitors like Codex due to perceived quality regressions and unaddressed usage-limit issues. - Complaints about buggy Windows auto-updater, app crashes, and large disk storage footprint. - Frustration that Anthropic responds to minor performance news while staying largely silent on bigger recurring complaints (outages, guardrails, pricing). **By community** - x (skeptical): Replies to the announcement are dominated by complaints about model quality, memory usage, and unresolved bugs, with only scattered praise for the speed improvement itself. **Hottest debate:** Whether the app-level performance work matters at all when many feel the underlying model (Opus 5) quality has regressed and warrants more urgent attention. **Open questions** - Does the reduced launch time also address the high idle RAM/memory consumption people are reporting? - Will Anthropic address the Opus 5 verbosity and tone regression that many consider a bigger issue than startup speed? - What is causing usage limits to be consumed faster than expected (a bug some claim to have identified)? **Highlights** > @bcherny honestly the 2x isn't even the interesting bit here. they found it in a backgrounded JS runtime. not the model nor the inference. we're all obsessing over making AI faster and meanwhile some of the best wins are hiding in painfully normal software problems > — [nitrostackai on x · 1 points](https://x.com/nitrostackai/status/2089941757836579097) > @bcherny Claude has lost the interest of many people. Nowadays, people are just busy trying to find the alternative - and they succeeded. You guys worked really hard in pushing customers away. The competition is no longer petty, its real and in some cases - much better. Sad outcome. > — [ZidanSilverlane on x · 10 points](https://x.com/ZidanSilverlane/status/2089930063785443843) > @bcherny I'm out. Cancelled. Too slow and I cannot bear the Claude-speak any longer. I get one life and I'm not going to spend it gating load-bearing belt-and-braces > — [thecargocultnz on x · 5 points](https://x.com/thecargocultnz/status/2089934250091139540) > @ClaudeDevs Used 3x ram than a month ago too. It destroys my 16gb M4 Mac mini. I have to run terminal, desktop app kills my computer > — [Nixtrodamis on x · 1 points, 4 comments](https://x.com/Nixtrodamis/status/2089905381178818968) > @ClaudeDevs We don't need this. WE NEED THE CODE QUALITY AND THE RESPONSE SPEED > — [Stevie\_658jjh on x · 21 points, 1 comments](https://x.com/Stevie_658jjh/status/2089870205153640735) **Source threads** - [x](https://x.com/ClaudeDevs/status/2089860955266228548) · 1853 points · 211 comments - [x](https://x.com/DanDr1s/status/2089863221247156504) · 36 points · 2 comments - [x](https://x.com/bcherny/status/2089924199804711410) · 0 points · 122 comments --- Tags: [#performance](https://daily.dev/tags/performance), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/claude-desktop-starts-about-twice-as-fast-now-t9j4eezv6) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Claude Desktop starts about twice as fast now","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/claude-desktop-starts-about-twice-as-fast-now-t9j4eezv6","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/claude-desktop-starts-about-twice-as-fast-now-t9j4eezv6"},"datePublished":"2026-08-19T04:16:15.399Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T13:17:38.881Z","description":"Anthropic fixed a background-launch bug in Claude Desktop that was throttling timers and dropping the JS engine into power-saving mode during startup. 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