IMac Running Really Slow

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Level 1

4 points

IMac Running Really Slow

My IMac is a the Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, Late 2015 and for about a year now its been running soo slowly. Its fully updated and is using macOS Mojave 10.14.6, however when I want to load anything it takes a very long time. The start up time for it at the moment is around 5-6 minutes before i'm able to (slowly) open the internet.

I've got over 800GB of free space and there isn't anything running in the background apart from Chrome if im on the internet.

I really dont know what is wrong with it and its driving me insane.

Please can someone let me know what this might be and if i can speed it up?

Thanks,

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Sep 8, 2019 8:25 AM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

210,603 points

Sep 8, 2019 12:22 PM in response to hmabey12

To add to rkaufmann87's recommendation of an external SSD see my post in this topic: imovie & idvd replacement - Apple Community. Although the post is regarding older systems everything else would apply to your situation. Just use a cloning app like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your boot drive to the SSD and you're good to go.

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Answer 2

rkaufmann87

Level 10

144,084 points

Sep 8, 2019 10:04 AM in response to hmabey12

Well there is nothing wrong at all with the Mac. What is wrong is you bought the wrong Mac! The configuration you have is limited to 8GB of un-upgradeable RAM and a glacially slow 5400 RPM hard drive. These machines are intended to do e-mail and surfing the net and not much else. You are using it for MS Office and also for a gaming platform. About the only thing you can do with this machine is to buy an external SSD install Mac OS on it and then move all your data and applications to the SSD and use the internal storage for additional storage!

Going forward, NEVER EVER buy a computer based on price buy it based on what your anticipated needs are. At a bare minimum you should have bought with 16GB of RAM and a SSD for speed.

Two other items of note, first is you use Google Chrome as your browser which is a notorious RAM hog. I would recommend using Safari which is more sophisticated and uses resources more effectively. Next, is you don't backup your computer using Time Machine or any other method from what I can tell. This is a HUGE error and a certain guarantee of lost data. At a bare minimum you should have a Time Machine backup. If you are not familiar with Time Machine please look over https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201250

Good luck.

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Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

144,084 points

Sep 8, 2019 8:43 AM in response to hmabey12

Please post an EtreCheck report of your system and we can look for any obvious issues. Please click the link, watch the slideshow to learn how to use the tool and download and run the free version of the app and then post the complete report it produces as your reply to this message.

When you have run the report and are ready to reply to this message please attach the report. You will see a screen shot below that indicates where to click in your reply message.

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Answer 4

hmabey12 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 8, 2019 10:25 AM in response to rkaufmann87

Hi,

Thanks for going through that and letting me know.

I went into an Apple store and spoke to someone about what I was wanting to use my computer for and was told this would be good enough. Clearly that was my mistake.

If doomed to always be slow then i'll sell it and just buy a standard computer as I don't use it for anything special.

Thanks again for looking into it.

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