I have recently bought a new Macbook Pro due to my old one dying. Unfortunately it comes preloaded with Sequoia. I realize this is not great as far as sketchup requirements goes because it says,
" A Note for MacOS 15 (Sequoia) Users
At this time, MacOS 15 (Sequoia) is not supported for any version of SketchUp. We do not recommend updating to Sequoia. If you have already done so you may experience intermittent compatibility issues when running SketchUp after upgrading."
However, I can’t even get it to open one time. There’s nothing intermittent about it. Is there something I can do or should I just cancel my pro license? My license renews in 4 days, and I’m not keen on paying for it if I can’t use it. It sucks to not be able to use Sketchup at all, but especially for the price.
Sorry, I did a poor job of giving useful information. Thanks for the responses.
I have a brand new installation of both 23 and 24. Upon first opening the app hangs immediately with Sketchup (not responding) and will stay like that until I force quit. No third party extensions loaded because I haven’t even been able to open it up one time. There are no bug splats to send in, no Sketchup window of any kind ever loads.
Digging into this more, Activity Monitor immediately shows a fully pegged CPU. The Console only shows one error related to Sketchup:
Private sandbox for com.sketchup.SketchUp.2024.SketchUpThumbnailExtension : <none>
Sorry if this seems like an insulting question, but we’ve seen errors from it before: Did you install SketchUp correctly by dragging the SketchUp icon onto the Applications icon in the installer dialog and then closing the dialog and ejecting the dmg? Strange errors can happen if you are actually running from the dmg instead of the Applications folder.
I have been running SketchUp 2024 on Sequoia 15.1.1 with occasional glitches, but nothing like what you report. Of course, my Mac is a 2019 Intel-based MBP, not Apple silicon. I searched the console logs and couldn’t find a message about SketchUp anything like what you posted. That makes me think that perhaps setting up a sandbox differs somehow when Apple silicon is detected vs Intel. Alas, you may have to wait for SU 2025, as the devs have said that they won’t be patching 2024 for Sequoia compatibility.
No insult taken, I appreciate the help. I have indeed moved it to /Applications and am attempting to run from that folder. Yeah it does seem like it differs based on architecture, but that also appears to just be related to the built in thumbnail extension, so I can’t imagine that would be why the whole app refuses to start.
That is interesting to hear about the roadmap, thank you for that information that’s actually quite helpful. Can I ask where you saw that information? That helps give me some indication when I can expect to have a solution.
Note: I am not a SketchUp employee, so this is only my own understanding not an official position.
There have been multiple posts on this forum about running SketchUp 2024 on Sequoia with mixed results, and in them Trimble has confirmed that they don’t plan to patch 2024 for compatibility.
Based on history, it is safe to assume that SketchUp 2025 will be released sometime in the next few months and they have said it will be compatible with Sequoia. Alas, that can be a long time to wait if you can’t run SketchUp at all!
On macOS applications usually reopen the last documents you were working on. If one of those has a problem you can start the application opening, and immediately hold down Shift, to stop it from reopening the documents. That may be worth a try.
The welcome screen loads recent document thumbnails, if there is a thumbnail issue I can see that could cause a problem. There is a way to avoid showing the welcome screen, by editing the preferences file. Or you could right-click on an old trustworthy SKP, and open the file that way. Then the welcome screen shouldn’t show.
I do all of my M3 testing in macOS 15.2, and don’t think that will be the cause of the problem.
This laptop has never opened sketchup before so there is no last document for what it’s worth. I did try to hold down shift as I opened it and it still just didn’t open any windows and got stuck not responding.
That is interesting about the thumbnails, I guess maybe that IS my issue after all. Can you share some instructions on avoiding the welcome screen via preferences file (do you mean the plist)?
I also tried bringing over an skp file to this laptop that I can verify works fine on other machines, but same thing here. It still just immediately hung, no windows opened.
I am on 15.1.1 so I’d try to update, but I don’t see 15.2 as having released. Is that still in beta? This being a laptop I need and sketchup not being required for work (hobbyist uses here) I’d rather not update my OS to a beta OS. Also, I doubt this changes much but this is an m4 not an m3, just in case that affects anything.
Note: your Library folder is hidden by default and is not the same as the system-level /Llibrary. You may have to get there using Finder’s Go->Go To Folder menu, where you can paste the line above.
Open the PrivatePreferences.json file in a text editor and look for a line that says
“WelcomeDialog”: {
“ShowOnStartup”: true
}
Edit it to say false instead of true. If you don’t find such a block, insert one that says false (the default is to open the WelcomeDialog, so it might be missing until you check the box in the Dialog that says not to open it next time).
Though I did figure it might be worth trying to open Sketchup 24 in Rosetta mode and thankfully that did work. From an initial poking around it seems like everything is fine, so at least I can use it. It feels weird that I need to do it in Rosetta mode, I’m sure there’s something else at play - my old laptop was an M1 mac and able to run Sketchup 2023 just fine, and Colin pointed out his work.
I’m happy to share any bug reports, console logs, etc if it’s worthwhile to the Sketchup Team, but I can also get by for now on Rosetta mode for a bit until 2025 comes out if I’m just an isolated case.
Rosetta mode lets you run the Intel version instead of the Apple Silicon version (they come packaged together in a single “fat” app. So there is evidently something wrong with your installation of the M version. Beyond what we’ve tried, I have no idea what that might be. Good news that at least you can get by with that version - there is no difference in function.