Constant spinning beach ball after Big Sur update

Report #2 indicates that you still have CleanMyMac installed. Uninstall it according to the developer's instructions. Then you can check to see if you've removed all of the supporting files by downloading and running Find Any File to search for any files with the application's name  and the developer's name in the file name.  For CMMM software you'd do the following search(es): 

1 - Name contains cleanmymac

2 - Name contains macpaw

Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.  

You also may have several instances of adware installed. Download and run the free version of Malwarebytes. It was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community. 

There is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This user tip describes what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community   

You've had a number of apps crash many times, LastPass, Xcode and Wacom TabletDriverl. Make sure you have the latest versions installed. Also boot into Safe Mode by booting with the Shift key held down and reboot normally.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

When done with the above rerun Etrecheck and repost the report in your reply.

Download and run Etrecheck. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support  to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Copy the report

and use the Additional Text button to include the report in your reply.

IMPORTANT:

Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck in the Etrecheck's Privacy preference pane so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:

Also click and read the About info to further permit full disk access.

Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine what might be causing the problem.

I don't see any of the usual suspects in the report. Log into another vanilla admin user account, Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac,  and see if the problem persists. (This tells us if the problem is limited to your user account or is system wide).

That was a good idea I should have come up with. Before doing that, last night I deleted all aspects of Google file stream from my system, and rebooted a few more times and it is running better. But it still has lots of finder issues. For instance it is nearly impossible to drag a file from the desktop to another folder, it just spins the beachball, and loses track of what I clicked and dragged on. In BBEdit, as I type I get beachballs, I'm guessing related to the auto-save, every time it reaches out to the file system I get beachballs. Cropping a screenshot in Preview and saving is lots of beachballs as well still.

I made a new admin account, and it does NOT exhibit the same issues. I can screenshot and immediately drag it around the file system, and crop in Preview and all of it is as fast as I would expect. The new user is not logged into an AppleID or iCloud, which is the only main difference I can think of right now....

The first thing you need to do is uninstall CleanMyMac.

There is no Etrecheck report attached to your last post. Attach it this way:

Copy the report

and use the Additional Text button to include the report in your reply.

I also am having a huge issue with Beach balls in Big Sur (11.1). I waited until the .1 release to be pragmatic, and am on:

2019 27" iMac 3.7Ghz i5 - 6core

40GB RAM

100GB of 500GB free on SSD

I have done all the "Big Sur slow" including SMC/PRAM, disable start-up items etc... I turned off Google Drive, but still have iCloud Drive syncing in the BG. I also downloaded and tried CMM, and have since uninstalled.

What I have found is that anything that has to go through the finder for anything is when the beach balls occur. I have to force-quit the finder ever 1hr or so to even try to get anything done, but a simple download a file from Safari takes a solid 120 seconds for the dialog box to come up, then another 20 seconds to be able to click the name to save as, then 5 seconds to actually save. This is consistent with any app that touches the Finder - which is pretty much everything. I think a Mac SE would be faster than this. I take a screenshot, and I have to force-quit the finder to get it to actually show up on the desktop. After a restart of the finder, I can sort of navigate through Finder windows, with each sub-folder taking 5-10 seconds to show the contents.

For me everything else was buggy but after 5-6 restarts and the SMC/PRAM it has stabilized a bit outside of the finder. Mail.app can only last being open about 5min before it locks up and has to be force-quit (likely due to the finder I'm guessing).

I just keep hoping 11.2 fixes it, but given the responses in forums, not likely it seems.....

I'm having the same problem with the dreaded spinning beach ball on my MacBook Pro 2019 after updating to Big Sur.

Didn't have any problems before this update. Beach ball primarily appears when trying to make changes to system preferences.

When I shut down, I get the start up screen but nothing on my desktop, no icons, no dock, just spinning beach ball, can't access anything. I power off numerous times and if I do eventually get the computer to start up, internet and operation of any program is excessively slow.

I've made another user account and rebooted from it which didn't help. Cleaned up the hard drive, did a Mac recovery, zapped the PRAM, ran diagnostics, even did another upload of Big Sur again thinking there was a hiccup when doing the original update . . . nothing has helped. I've tried everything suggested from various websites on the internet to no avail.

I'm a graphic designer and working from home so I can care for my husband after his recent open heart surgery. At this point, it has become pretty much impossible!

If I can't figure it out quickly, I'll need to erase my hard drive and go back to my original operating system, possibly do an internet recovery, ANY HELP or suggestions would be appreciated.

I ran and attached the EtreCheck report.

Not sure what should be done at this point.

See report attached, and thanks for your help!