Flutter plugin slows down Android Studio

[ekuleshov]

After starting Android Studio on MacBook pro M1 (MacOS 15.7.3) with Flutter plugin installed the IDE feels reasonably responsive.

However, after launching the Flutter debug app target (I usually run the macOS target) and performing a few hot restarts, everything becomes sluggish and unresponsive, making the IDE nearly impossible to use.

I see there is a heavy CPU load even when there any apps running or no ongoing build processes in the IDE. Help / Diagnostic Tools / Activity Monitor...

 %CPU  Subsystem

172.6  <Process total CPU usage>
 33.3  actionSystem (in com.intellij.openapi)
 22.6  <JIT compiler>
 11.3  <unidentified: DefaultDispatcher-worker->
  5.5  <Activity Monitor>
  5.1  <unidentified: UI thread>
  3.2  <infrastructure: AWT-AppKit>
  2.3  <unidentified: Java2D Queue Flusher>

Thread dump is also attached:

threadDump-20260525-095451.txt

[helin24]

Can you check what flutter and dart processes are running on your machine? maybe ps ax | grep flutter (or dart?) Gemini suggests to me there may be multiple analysis servers and flutter processes. Do you tend to have only one project open?

[ekuleshov]

@helin24 I have 3..4 flutter projects open. you should see some reference in the attached thread dump

Killing dart processes does not help to recover the IDE speed. But if I let these dart processes running and restart the IDE - things are fast until after I launch a flutter macos app for a few times.

[fuadreza]

No way I just update Flutter plugin and the IDE suddenly becomes slow. I can't even go to declaration:

[pq]

Could you run flutter doctor -v and share the output?

[ekuleshov]

@pq here you go

[✓] Flutter (Channel stable, 3.41.6, on macOS 15.7.3 24G419 darwin-arm64, locale en-CA) [1,053ms]
    • Flutter version 3.41.6 on channel stable at **/3.41.6
    • Upstream repository https://github.com/flutter/flutter.git
    • Framework revision db50e20168 (2 months ago), 2026-03-25 16:21:00 -0700
    • Engine revision 425cfb54d0
    • Dart version 3.11.4
    • DevTools version 2.54.2
    • Feature flags: enable-web, enable-linux-desktop, enable-macos-desktop, enable-windows-desktop, enable-android, enable-ios,
      no-cli-animations, enable-native-assets, omit-legacy-version-file, enable-lldb-debugging, enable-uiscene-migration

[✓] Android toolchain - develop for Android devices (Android SDK version 36.0.0) [6.7s]
    • Android SDK at **/Library/Android/sdk
    • Emulator version 36.6.11.0 (build_id 15507667) (CL:N/A)
    • Platform android-36, build-tools 36.0.0
    • Java binary at: /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home/bin/java
      This is the JDK bundled with the latest Android Studio installation on this machine.
      To manually set the JDK path, use: `flutter config --jdk-dir="path/to/jdk"`.
    • Java version OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 21.0.10+-117844308-b1163.108)
    • All Android licenses accepted.

[✓] Xcode - develop for iOS and macOS (Xcode 26.2) [1,273ms]
    • Xcode at /Applications/Xcode_26.2.app/Contents/Developer
    • Build 17C52
    • CocoaPods version 1.16.2

[✓] Chrome - develop for the web [5ms]
    • Chrome at /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome

[✓] Connected device (3 available) [7.0s]
    • macOS (desktop)   • macos       • darwin-arm64   • macOS 15.7.3 24G419 darwin-arm64
    • Chrome (web)      • chrome      • web-javascript • Google Chrome 148.0.7778.216

[pq]

Thanks!