Q: El Capitan running slowly?

hi Gina you can!!!! but note that I didnt DOWNGRADE. I INSTALLED YOSEMITE FROM SCRATCH and removed El capitan entirely by formatting the hard drive.

Sadly, I'm in the same boat as some others. Since the El Capitan upgrade, my system has become useless due to the spinning wheel of death. This is the worst experience I've ever had with an Apple product. I was hoping the first update would address obvious performance issues, but it didn't help at all. I may try one last time to see if there is a way to resolve this problem, but Apple really has dropped the ball and not responded back with any decent fix (such as automating all these ideas others have come up with to try and resolve the problem). Sigh....

likewise...I waited and waited for fixes while i was becoming more and more irritated with my useless imac. 2 months and just got worse! apple said "it will take a few days for it to adjust, be patient" and forums suggested about the mail and spotlight issue being the cause of such problem. seemed to work for a few weeks but the overall performance was in no way similar to what it was before el capitan. Im so glad I took the courage to re-install Yosemite. see im now even able to reply to this forum with no delays (hhahaa) before, i would have to wait for my browsers to actually open...

Sounds like the old days with Windows PC. Once a year I would do a factory reset with a glass of wine and then prepared for 2-3 days of reinstalling everything. This is why I got a Mac cause I was done with that. I'm not ready for that yet. I'm gonna pray apple does something soon.

Hi miguel.apple: How do you do this? When I do (Command + Shift + G) nothing happens.  When I copy and past the ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Logs/Mail/ in the search line it brings up the mail folder, but I don't want to delete the wrong things.  Sounds like you have the answer, but I don't know how to perform it.

This has had a fantastic effect. Everything has speeded up. But how do I stop this situation recurring?

Your reply was to JasonHaven so I am presuming you had the Mail app problem. I had that same problem early on and after correcting it I have never had it re-occur.

I presume everyone is now aware that there is an update to El Capitan to 10.11.3

This may help some of the issues many are having.

That's good to hear. All is still well, but it is concerneing that we all have to fiddle around disabling stuff just to get, in mycase, a new computer and a new operating systme to work as intended.

This did not solve all the of the problem (because El Capitan appears to be a real downgrade in terms of performance), but it made a big improvement.  I find that I am drinking less coffee now because I do not have a 3 minute involuntary "break" every time I click on something.  I would recommend that folks start with Spotlight.

worked for me! thank u!

thanks! This has definitely resolved my issue. For some reason, having transparency was causing all sorts of weird slowness. All apps, even resource hungry apps like Photos and Mail are launching in less than half the time. I even had issue with typing in the safari search bar, but not anymore.

I have a 2011 Macbook Pro and it has been running very slow over all since I downloaded El Captain.  Specifically when I open any Microsoft Office.  I have office 2016.  here is my EtreCheck.  What can I do to fix this problem?

EtreCheck version: 2.8 (240)

Report generated 2016-02-01 21:55:12

Download EtreCheck from http://etrecheck.com

Runtime 6:49

Performance: Below Average

Click the [Support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Click the [Remove] links to remove adware.

Click the [Check files] link for help with unknown files.

Problem: Computer is too slow

Hardware Information: ⓘ

    MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2011)

    [Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

    MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,1

    1 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 2-core

    4 GB RAM Upgradeable - [Instructions]

        BANK 0/DIMM0

            2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz ok

        BANK 1/DIMM0

            2 GB DDR3 1333 MHz ok

    Bluetooth: Old - Handoff/Airdrop2 not supported

    Wireless:  en1: 802.11 a/b/g/n

    Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 521 - SN = W02075UZSD3LA

Video Information: ⓘ

    Intel HD Graphics 3000

        Color LCD 1280 x 800

System Software: ⓘ

    OS X El Capitan 10.11.3 (15D21) - Time since boot: less than an hour

Disk Information: ⓘ

    TOSHIBA MK7559GSXF disk0 : (750.16 GB) (Rotational)

        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>  [Recovery]: 650 MB

        Macintosh HD (disk1) / : 748.93 GB (257.19 GB free)

            Core Storage: disk0s2 749.30 GB Online

    MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-8A8   ()

USB Information: ⓘ

    Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

    Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

    Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

    Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

Thunderbolt Information: ⓘ

    Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: ⓘ

    Mac App Store and identified developers

Adware: ⓘ

    ~/Library/Safari/Extensions/Searchme.safariextz

    ~/Library/Safari/Extensions/eBay Shopping Assistant.safariextz

    2 adware files found. [Remove]

Unknown Files: ⓘ

    ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.spigot.ApplicationManager.plist

    ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.shoebox.launched.plist

    ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.shoebox.launched.pliste

    3 unknown files found. [Check files]

System Launch Agents: ⓘ

    [loaded]    161 Apple tasks

    [running]    75 Apple tasks

System Launch Daemons: ⓘ

    [loaded]    195 Apple tasks

    [running]    93 Apple tasks

Launch Daemons: ⓘ

    [loaded]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Support]

    [loaded]    com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist [Support]

    [loaded]    com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.helper.plist [Support]

User Launch Agents: ⓘ

    [failed]    com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-[...]@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist [Details]

    [loaded]    com.bittorrent.uTorrent.plist [Support]

    [loaded]    com.google.keystone.agent.plist [Support]

    [loaded]    com.shoebox.launched.plist [Support]

    [loaded]    com.shoebox.launched.pliste [Support]

    [running]    com.spigot.ApplicationManager.plist [Support]

User Login Items: ⓘ

    iTunesHelper    Application  (/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

    uTorrent    Application  (/Applications/uTorrent.app)

    Plex Media Server    UNKNOWN  (missing value)

    Dropbox    Application  (/Applications/Dropbox.app)

    Popup    Application Hidden (/Library/Application Support/Pharos/Popup.app)

Other Apps: ⓘ

    [running]    com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000002.Google Chrome

    [running]    com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000004.Microsoft Word

    [running]    com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000007.Microsoft AU Daemon

    [running]    com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000009.EtreCheck

    [running]    com.getdropbox.dropbox.88672

    [running]    com.pharos.popup.8672

Internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

    FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 20.0.0.286 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

    Flash Player: Version: 20.0.0.286 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

    Default Browser: Version: 601 - SDK 10.11

    SharePointBrowserPlugin: Version: 14.4.1 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

    Silverlight: Version: 5.1.10411.0 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

    SlingPlayer: Version: Unknown [Support]

User internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

    WebEx64: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.6 [Support]

Safari Extensions: ⓘ

    eBay Shopping Assistant Adware!  [Remove]

    Searchme Adware!  [Remove]

3rd Party Preference Panes: ⓘ

    Flash Player  [Support]

Time Machine: ⓘ

    Skip System Files: NO

    Auto backup: YES

    Volumes being backed up:

        Macintosh HD: Disk size: 748.93 GB Disk used: 491.74 GB

    Destinations:

        OneTouch4 [Local]

        Total size: 0 B

        Total number of backups: 0

        Oldest backup: -

        Last backup: -

        Size of backup disk: Too small

            Backup size 0 B < (Disk used 491.74 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU: ⓘ

        15%    Google Chrome Helper(9)

         8%    Google Chrome

         6%    WindowServer

         3%    kernel_task

         2%    hidd

Top Processes by Memory: ⓘ

    721 MB    Google Chrome Helper(9)

    420 MB    kernel_task

    180 MB    mdworker(9)

    152 MB    Google Chrome

    90 MB    Microsoft Word

Virtual Memory Information: ⓘ

    214 MB    Free RAM

    3.79 GB    Used RAM (1.10 GB Cached)

    2 MB    Swap Used

Diagnostics Information: ⓘ

    Feb 1, 2016, 09:53:59 PM    /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/uTorrent_2016-02-01-215359_[redacted].hang

        /Applications/uTorrent.app/Contents/MacOS/uTorrent

    Feb 1, 2016, 09:19:44 PM    Self test - passed

OK, I give up...

I think I have now tried EVERYTHING suggested in this thread:  I've reset SMC more times than I can remember, deleted all Mail logs, deleted a Mail Account that was failing to authenticate, unchecked EVERYTHING in Spotlight and goodness only knows what else...  It is still slower than a tortoise on sedatives - to do ANYTHING!!!  I even uninstalled ALL HP software, as it kept showing 'Deskjet' / 'User _lp' hogging memory in Activity Monitor...

This Macbook worked fine until I upgraded to El Crapitan...  OK, so it has always been a bit light on RAM, at 4GB, but now, even with NO Applications open at all, it still beachballs and hangs whenever I click ANYTHING

I'm not a techie and don't know what else to do, but I bitterly regret upgrading beyond Snow Leopard, to be honest...  I don't use any 'Cloud' Apps at all, as we have very slow (and/or expensive) broadband here, in rural UK, and every so-called 'upgrade' since has just slowed my MBP down to the point that it is now unusable for anything remotely commercial or with a deadline!

Does anyone know of an easy way to unwind all of this awful mess and get a usable Mac again?

im with you. I am so glad I installed a flesh copy of Yosemite after 2 months of nightmares. Upgrading to **** capitan was the biggest mistake ive ever made in terms of my journey with computers. they must be incredibly embarrassed by their crappy work. It took me a full day and 1/2 to put all my files back to documents from time machine, but well worth the trouble. I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO **** CAPITAN. in my 2 year old imac. EVER.