MacBook Pro mid 2012 running slow

Although I strongly suspect it's your hard drive failing I wanted to add a couple more things based on everything said here.

I see you are only using 35GB of your 500GB drive. Barely anything which makes me think you should just go ahead and upgrade to an insanely faster, if smaller, drive for dirt cheap.

As pointed out even if your hard drive is working well, at best it would get about 80MB/sec (although I bet yours is getting more like 30MB/sec...however I don't recommend doing a speed test like the free BlackMagic Speed Test until you back up your drive). You can do a search for that though as it's free and it will tell you your actual drive performance and whether you have a driver-related issue as I suspect, or not.

A new SSD replacement drive starts at $20 at Best Buy for a 128GB drive! Or up to $80 for a 480GB drive. This would give you about a 250 to 300MB/sec in performance, which is 1000% the speed of the 30MB/sec I suspect you are getting.

Generally, most people with 2012 MacBooks are well served...even without speed problems, by replacing their old mechanical HDD with a modern SSD that's several hundred percent faster, generates less heat, and uses less battery power, and are dirt cheap days at these lower 128-480GB capacities. Because of this, if the amount of money is not a show-stopper I strongly recommend doing this "blind" upgrade even without 100% narrowing things down.

If you care about your data I would buy or borrow a 64GB USB flash thumb drive or a USB external HDD, do a Time Machine backup of your whole system (if you have data you care about that is), then replace the 500GB HDD with a new SSD as I describe, and pick up the replacement cable as mentioned or see how well it works with your current cable first.

This is almost certain to make your MacBook as good as new, actually better than it was new. You can easily restore from a Time Machine backup if you needed to back up your whole system, via Internet Recovery Mode. Or simply do a fresh install via Internet Recovery and just back up any essential files you have onto flash drives and skip time machine if you don't care about a full system backup.

Welcome!

Help us with "slow." Is starting the computer and launching apps slow? Once open, do most apps execute fast enough? Are videos slow? Etc.

To the report, the hard drive data have anomalies:

1) This:

disk0 - APPLE HDD HTS545050A7E362 500.11 GB (Mechanical - 5400 RPM) Internal SATA 1.5 Gigabit Serial ATA

Mid 2012 13-inch MBPs shipped with 3GB/sec drives. The last MBPs shat shipped with 1.5GB drives are much older than 2012. Has the hard drive been replaced?

2) Your write/read speeds are "normal" for an 8-year old drive that is 3GB/sec, but EtreCheck is reporting a 1.5GB/sec drive that should have transfer rates half of what's reported.

3) The drive performance section nearly timed out (yours was 109 seconds; timeout is 120 sec). But the drive sppeds are normal.

When I add those anomalies and run them through the margarita machine, I think the likely culprit is a bad hard drive cable.

Fortunately, for that model that cable is available, cheap (US$15), and easy for even a novice to install at home. The cable is the only weak point in an otherwise nearly bulletproof notebook. it is a thin ribbon and after years of the normal vibration of normal use and transport, the insulation can chafe and short intermittently.

Add to that a post here about two months ago reporting similar Etrecheck drive numbers that was fixed with t new cable.

I get the cables here:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Apple/8211480/

and use these video instructions: https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbookpro_13_unibody_mid12_hard_drive_cable/

There are other issues.

1) At this point your computer does not have the resources to run Chrome. It is a glutton 🐷. With more RAM a and a faster drive, maybe.

2) 4GB RAM is the bare minimum for Catalina. It won't 't be a wonder-cure for your speed issues--the old mechanical drive will always be slow--but going to 8GB will help some, and for little money, by taking some of the Virtual Memory load off the hard drive. You computer will accommodate up to 16 GB RAM is your buy from Crucial or Other World Computing.

3) If you are going to replace the hard drive cable, you might as well install a fast 6GB/sec solid state drive (SSD). Your logic board is already rated for 6GB/sec drives. I have the same model and tracked app launch speeds as I first doubled the RAM and later added the SSD. Note what made the biggiset change:

Base system as shipped:

4GB RAM and slow SATA 3GBps 5400rpm hard drive: Office and Photoshop Elements took 15-18 seconds to be ready to use.

First upgrade, RAM:

8GB RAM and slow SATA 3GBps 5400rpm hard drive: Office and Photoshop Elements took 15-18 seconds to be ready to use.

Second upgrade, inexpensive solid-state drive

8GB RAM and fast SATA 6GBps SSD: Office and Photoshop Elements take under 4 seconds to be ready to use.

The drive speed fo the SSD are 9x faster than the origin l mech drive.''

I used this kit: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/Y3SSD6E500/ also easily installable at home.

(Install video: https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbookpro_13_unibody_mid12_hd/

so for about $120 for the drive kit and cable you will have a much more enjoyable computer, I do.

Based on that report, you don't have any software-based slowdown.

That being said, here are a few questions:

Do you have your mouse freezing every minute or less (stops responding to movement) even when you aren't doing anything, or no?

Same question, but getting a spinning beach ball. Does it frequently beach ball every minute or less, even when sitting at the Mac just staring at the screen doing nothing, or no?

How long has it been running really slow, and has the problem gotten worse over weeks/months fairly steadily? Or no? (i.e. not gradually)

All of the question I ask directly relate to the strong possibility of imminent hard drive failure (which would mean total data loss) and I would strongly suggest if any of the answers are "yes" then your #1 priority should shift to back up your crucial data onto a USB flash drive, USB hard drive, or using Time Machine onto a USB hard drive. If this is what is going on though, the hard drive is easy to replace with a new one. At the moment though, it's crucial to clarify if you have data you care about and get it backed up before anything else.

Slow app opening is the mech hard drive. The fastest I seen that mech drive type run in 2012 MBPs is about 80MB/sec for a healthy one with few "miles" on it.

Have you checked you actual internet speed? Some sites are slow but sometimes users' routers get bogged down and need a reset. If you are connecting wirelessly and have access to the router, try power-cycling. Rather that turn it off with the power switch, you unplug the power cord for about 30 seconds. After reconnecting power, wait another 1-2 minutes for the router to reconnect with everything before testing

Two other things I noticed before getting interrupted before (Ah! The life of a volunteer!):

• System Information was open as the time of the test and using 80% of your CPU. It does not need to run in the background so at least quit it.
• Your iCloud uploads were stalled at the tie of testing. That could contribute to sluggish internet speeds as well. Check to see what is trying to upload.