Why does my new M1 iMac have the spinning ball every time I try to do anything????

csmaring wrote:

My new M1 iMac constantly has the spinning beach ball. It is more frustrating than hp's I had 20 years ago. It's brand new and belongs in the trash.

Good question.

First—

Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/Anti-Virus/VPN

all known to cause issues on the macOS.

To trouble shoot further you can:

—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account Change Users & Groups settings on Mac - Apple Support

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 

—SafeBoot How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support will sort many anomalies

Takes a bit longer to get to the login screen, does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache, font cache, etc., third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.

a reboot will put it back to normal mode.

This test will tell you if third party interference; extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.