How to stop the spinning beach ball

Hi there -

If you think your Mac might have an issue, you can use this procedure to help gather information on your Mac which will help us troubleshoot your Mac’s problem.

To start, let us know what model your Mac is and what version of macOS you’re using. The simplest way to find out is About This Mac, available by choosing About This Mac from the Apple menu  in the upper-left corner of your screen. 

Next, share a screenshot of your Mac’s storage information. In the Finder, choose Go > Utilities, then double-click the Disk Utility icon. (Disk Utility is located in the /Applications/Utilities folder.) Alternatively, click Launchpad in the Dock, type Disk Utility in the search field, then click the Disk Utility icon. Once Disk Utility is open, take a screenshot of the information it automatically opens to, which will be your startup disk. Next, select View > Show All Devices in Disk Utility and select the non-indented disk entry—it’s at the top of the hierarchy. Then, take a screenshot of the newly selected entry. Upload all screenshots here. 

Next, use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac to help determine which hardware component might be at fault. When testing is complete, Apple Diagnostics shows the results, including one or more reference codes.

Learn about Apple Diagnostics reference codes

Let us know which reference codes you receive.

Finally, let us know what antivirus, VPN, or cleaning software you have installed. 

-Jack

Download and run Etrecheck. Be sure to give it Full Disk access before running.

Copy and paste the results into your reply. 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 paste the report in your reply.

Then we can evaluate the report to see if we can determine the cause of the problem.

And what are you doing when you see the beachball? It may mean an app has frozen and you need to force quit it. How to force an app to quit on your Mac - Apple Support

It could also just be that the computer is taking a long time to think about something. When I do backups on my old Mac I can see one for 20 seconds.

Force Quit the app ? It might not be compatible (anymore)