This was very interesting. Almost all the searches for “crash and unexpectedly quit” were using a Mac. But then I was wondering, are there just more Mac users? But while browsing through the regular forum I did find Windows users. This does bring up a question of, are there any issues that Windows users are having that Mac users aren’t having? I am assuming the answer is no, or very few if any. But maybe that’s an incorrect assumption.
“unexpectedly quit” is a Mac specific message. You could search for “not responding” to see more Windows issues.
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Also try a “BugSplat” search, just more data.
My suspicion is there are more Windows users. I have not found any real data to support this however. @colin has commented on many SU employees using Mac portables. Makes me wonder about the mix for the developers.
In my environment, the 8 year old PC, provides a very stable workflow. In contrast my 5 year old iMac crashes multiple times during the work day. This is not to say that my Windows PC never crashes, it does, but rarely. Most of these crashes can be attributed to user error and extension related incompatibles.
In my mind, the choice comes down to the usage case. If using SU/LO for pleasure or hobby pursuits, then MacOS may be perfectly acceptable. For income producing activities, my overriding requirement would be a stable, productive workflow.
OH. Plot twist. I searched “not responding” and got what looked like a majority Windows users, and also what looked like more issues.
Maybe due to a much larger Windows user base … 
It appears you had your mind made up early on. Good Luck !
Thanks! I actually have been torn exactly in half this whole time! (while at times alternating leaning a little farther one way or the other).
Not Responding is normally an indication that SketchUp is busy doing something and won’t respond to further input until it is finished. It’s a common occurrence when SketchUp is doing something very taxing like creating the 18,000+ entities in these screw threads. It doesn’t mean that SketchUp has quit, though.
Oh. Yes it does look like that. Hmm. I feel like Windows might just be the thing that makes more sense.
LayOut works better on Windows. It has RubyConsole and I can automate my works and save a lot of time.
Take a look at this video Ruby on LayOut
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Its been a rather rough winter in terms of SU/LO crashes on the Mac, which was unusual. Its ALL GOOD now though, after the update a few weeks ago. I think Mac users complain a bit more on the LO thing, just because they expect more, and are more expert computer users 
(sorry for that )
Personally I will never use a PC again in my life, but thats just my immune system protesting. On the Photo side there are some brilliant and rather cheap Photoshop alternatives on the Mac, like Pixelmator and the Affinity suite.
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Yes on affinity! I am an avid photographer too.
Just Curious… can you roll over your Sketchup license at no cost between WIN and MAC?
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SketchUp licenses are not tied to the operating system. It doesn’t matter which OS you choose. The same license is used for both.
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Before 2015, they where platform specific and if you switched, you needed to contact support (the last characters represent the selling party and platform (eg -ALM = At Last Mac)
I switched from Win to MAC back when version 8 was active my old version 8 Win is still is and perpetual!
2015 and up are ‘agnostic’ , they work on both platforms (or religion
In november 2020, they stopped selling perpetual licenses with serial numbers. It’s now subscription only and you need to activate SketchUp with a Trimble ID (= email address) This works on all platforms.
This is interesting. I feel like the speed of LO is actually really horrendous at times on a Mac. I wonder if you’re suggesting that the speed can be equally bad on a PC? What update are you referring to that should have fixed the crashing issue? - Funny about the immune system, took me a moment to get that you were referring to computer viruses!
Version 21.1.278 a couple of weeks ago took away all the " crash after closing a drawing" that I had this winter. And I do actually get physically unwell from touching a PC… after having worked on them for a decade.
This debate is always interesting and I will say a kudos to everyone for keeping out of the realm of zealotry.
I’m a Mac user for the last 10 years. Have used both platforms extensively on a professional level and at times at the same desk. I choose Mac not because I am more computer savvy or have higher expectations. In fact I use the platform because I’m largely small minded when it comes to computer usage. It needs to turn on and connect to everything I have plugged into it and do that every day with out fail. My general experience is that Mac’s do that better than PC’s and I know that my brain isn’t smart enough for PC’s and the computer knowledge needed to keep them running so…Mac it is. Hat’s off to all you PC users, you are way smarter than me.
But I digress. Annsi makes a great point here that is platform agnostic. As a Mac user I have faced the LO speed issues. Being committed in the thousands of dollars to the Mac universe (yes I know, PC users still have lots of money in their pockets as well) leaving it is not an option. So my conclusion is that LO being splatty and slow is just reality and therefore the onus is on me to find ways to counterbalance that slowness with better practices. This is where habits come in as Annsi has said. Tag control in LO is very important. This means I actually have to have a professional understanding of how to use Tags. Modeling efficency and SU/LO templates that streamline the workflow will settle both platforms into a routine that makes it easier to understand the splats that occur. Keyboard shortcuts and mapping those to mouse buttons also helps (scrolling over a viewport on the Mac in LO is frustration heaven. I mapped zoom to page extents to a button on my mouse and now all I have to do is scroll in, do the task, hit the button. No lag.)
I can’t tell you how many different things I have had to learn to offset the slowness which is why, of all the posts in this thread, I nodded my head the most vigorously with Annsi’s comment because ultimately that is the one thing I can do better whether I am on a PC or a Mac…I can become more masterful in my use of the software.
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Thank you for an incredibly helpful and informative response. If you have any other tips you could share I would greatly appreciate it, but this already is amazing.
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I am a Windows guy and not an expert in MacOS. However I have used Mac many times over the years and never really liked using MacOS. Maybe I just got too used to Windows.
Anyway, few days ago I was chatting with a friend who was showing off his new M1 Macbook Pro 
I asked him if we can do a quick test of SketchUp and compare it to my 6 years old HP Z1 AIO PC. After installing the demo version on his new M1 Mac, we did quick and random testing on both machines using 3 or 4 different SketchUp files, and clearly SketchUp was smoother on Windows! Even him as an Apple fanboy, could not deny it. However he did not care much about that because he never use SketchUp anyway 
We did not try LO on his M1, however, OL is running smooth in my PC and never noticed any lag so far.
Some Mac users says Sketchup is running well on M1 and others may says otherwise, however from all the reviews I read and watched, SketchUp seems to run better on non-M1 computers, at least for now until SketchUp release ARM optimized version for M1.
My advice to the OP is not to take my word over the others … just search for yourself and find the truth then decide.
PS. The message “Not Responding” in Windows does not mean the application crashed … it basically means the application is busy performing tasks that are taking longer than normal. Basically after waiting a little bit, the software recovers and returns to working as normal.
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I agree with several comments already made.
- SketchUp is not the most resource demanding software. A good GPU and decent RAM will see you through. (Not sure how the web version works in terms of GPU requirements).
- LayOut is slow on any machine. It’s been discussed multiple times on the forum and seems to be mainly a software problem.
- Modelling habits will be a major key - both in SU & LO. Referring back to point 2 - good habits and early setup in LO makes a noticeable difference NOT necessarily the machine specs.
- Other requirements - As SU is not the most resource hungry software, consider your alternate software and hardware requirements. I use a tonne of OpenSource software, which is not always MAC friendly. Perhaps you have other software that is more resource demanding, so the machine should probably be focused more on that software rather than SU.
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