My Macbook pro is very slow and all I see is the beach ball spinning all day. how can i get better speed out of it.

Perhaps Etrecheck may be consulted about irregularities from this user's Mac?

There is a support contact (still works) within his webpages at etrecheck.com

About memory upgrades: examples of these are stocked at OWC for this Mac.

Got two 8GB for my 2012 MB/Pro 13-inch model; it also has 240GB blade SSD.

..Good luck & safe travels..!

😊⛵️🏝🎣🏕🍄🌎📬

Unsigned Files:

Launchd: /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.livescribe.PenCommService.plist

Executable: /Library/Application Support/Livescribe/PenComm/PenCommService --daemon

Details: Exact match found in the legitimate list - probably OK

Running app: S8EX82NJP6.com.macpaw.CleanMyMac-mas.HealthMonitor

Seems like you may still have a remnant of CleanMyMac installed. I've never seen this type of entry in other EtreCheck reports so hopefully another contributor can chime in on this entry.

Also run Disk Utility First Aid on the hidden Container. Within Disk Utility click on "View" and select "Show All Devices" so that the hidden Container appears on the left pane of Disk utility. Even if First Aid reports everything as "Ok" click "Show Details" and look through the report looking to see if there are any unfixed errors listed. If there are any unfixed errors listed, then you will need to erase the whole physical drive and restore from a backup or clone.

Check the health of the hard drive by running DriveDx and posting the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper. It wouldn't surprise me if the hard drive is just worn out if not actually failing. The DriveDx report will allow me to determine if this is the case. Even if the drive is still healthy upgrading to an SSD will greatly improve system performance. The 4GB of memory is definitely borderline these days when using macOS 10.15.7, but I know it is nearly impossible to find an 8GB memory module for this laptop right now.

Also hard drive SATA Cable on the MBPro 13" (mid-2012) model has an extremely high rate of failure on this particular model. It is possible this cable is contributing to system slowness as well.

Your report shows your Mac was not starved for RAM at the time of your test. Adding RAM is OK because it is cheap, but it will not give you a noticeable speed increase. If you want a palpable speed boost, go for the SSD.

My old engineering boss always told us, "In God I trust; all others bring data!" So I bring data:

I have the same model MBP as yours and here are data on app launch times for my two slowest-to-open apps as I first doubled the RAM, then upgraded the slow factory hard drive to an inexpensive SSD:

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.

My MBP went from a pain to use to a joy to use for about US$100 for a 500GB SSD and cable. Why? My old factory hard drive scored about the same ast your scores here:

Performance:

System Load: 1.64 (1 min ago) 1.48 (5 min ago) 1.00 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O speed: 2.76 MB/s

File system: 48.47 seconds

Write speed: 68 MB/s

Read speed: 71 MB/s

which, based on my experience and hundreds of posts here, is about as good as can be expected from the slow 3GB/sec, 5400rpm roto-drives that the factory installed.

Mine, with the SSD, now does this:

Performance:

    System Load: 1.61 (1 min ago) 1.60 (5 min ago) 2.94 (15 min ago)

    Nominal I/O speed: 0.15 MB/s

    File system: 28.20 seconds

    Write speed: 487 MB/s

    Read speed: 482 MB/s

I suspect your HD cable is not an issue yet but, as it will be, replace it when you upgrade your drive to something faster.

Run EtreCheck and post the report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.