Recommended APP for file clean up on an iMac running Catalina?

This shows a serious decline in drive performance:

Performance:

System Load: 1.83 (1 min ago) 1.26 (5 min ago) 1.24 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O usage: 4.12 MB/s

File system: 63.84 seconds

Write speed: 31 MB/s ⚠️

Read speed: 41 MB/s ⚠️

A healthy mech drive with specs like yours should be doing a minimum of 100-110MB/sec, even when old. We have a 2011 iMac with that drive and it still does 100-110MB/sec after a dozen years of service.

👉🏻 Before doing anything else, try running with the MyBook external drive disconnected. I had a lot of performance issues, including slowness and stalls, when I used the MyBook. That went away when I changed to OWC external drive enclosures.

There a no cleaner apps recommended or needed. Also any app that claims to speed up your Mac will likely slow it down and cause more problems. To make sure there are not programs eating up valuable resources on startup, download EtreCheck and post the report here using the Additional Text option. This app is free to use and the report does not contain any personal information. It provides a snapshot of what programs are running in the background. We may be able to identify some files that should be deleted to maintain optimum performance.

Using EtreCheck - Apple Community

Hey there!

+1 - no cleaner apps are recommended.

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.

First, 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 if there might be a hardware component 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

In seconding of Mac Jim ID's recommendation of using Etrecheck I submit the following: 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.

The Kopite wrote:

<spinning wheels.log>

It appears that the hard driver may be failing due to it very low read and write speeds:

 Write speed: 31 MB/s

  Read speed: 41 MB/s

Make sure you have a full and current backup of your hard drive.

As Jack-19 mentioned you should reboot frequently. That will clear out temporary system and application cache and swap files and will lead to better performance.

An external SSD with a clone of your boot drive by Carbon Copy Cloner will be at least 10x faster in boot time, app launch time, etc.

You should seriously consider upgrading your iMac to a new Silicon iMac. You current unit is considered obsolete by Apple and if you need repaired of any kine it will have to be by an Apple Authorized Service Provider  as Apple will not work on obsolete units. Also parts will be hard to obtain and will probably cost more than what the unit is worth.

If you decide to go the external SSD route I recommend you contact OWC's (MacSales.com) customer support to see which of their many available external SSDs will best fit your Mac model, your work requirements and, most importantly, your budget. OWC is considered the premier 3rd party Mac hardware supplier by most here.

Heavy RAM usage - Apps are using a large amount of RAM.

Time since boot: About 44 days

These issues are likely related. Restart your Mac occasionally to clear out the memory. You have 16GB, and as long as you restart once every few weeks, you're fine for memory.

Hard drive too slow - The hard drive in this computer is too slow.

Your hard drive seems to be getting tired and possibly failing. Make sure you have a current Time Machine backup.

From there, you have two options:

Use an external SSD as your startup disk

Your iMac with a hard disk can have improved system performance by connecting to an external solid-state drive (also known as an SSD). An external SSD as a startup disk can give your Mac additional performance for system responsiveness, apps, startup, and more.

A recommended external SSD, sold from the Apple Store, is the LaCie Mobile SSD Secure USB-C Drive - Gray - Apple. You'll also need an adapter cable with it, such as a Belkin 3.1 USB-A to USB-C Cable, to connect to this SSD with your Mac.

I'd recommend a SSD with a capacity of 1TB.

Upgrade your Mac

Upgrading to a new Apple silicon iMac with the M3 chip would be a great upgrade!

If you were to upgrade to a new Mac, I'd recommend the following configuration:

• Apple M3 chip with 8‑core CPU with 4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, 10‑core GPU, and 16‑core Neural Engine
• 1TB SSD storage
• 16GB unified memory
• Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports
• Two USB 3 ports
• Gigabit Ethernet
• Magic Mouse
• Magic Keyboard with Touch ID

Explore iMac here: iMac - Apple.

iMac with M3 can be configured with up to 24GB of unified memory and 2TB of storage. If your budget allows, I'd suggest upgrading the memory and storage even further, but 16GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage is a great configuration.

Any configuration of iMac would be a great upgrade to replace your current Mac, which looks has served you well for over 10-years. With a new Mac, you'd also be able to run the most current version of macOS, macOS Sonoma, which is 4-versions newer than Catalina.

Hope this helps! Happy Holidays!

-Jack

Excellent report! Those new speed readings are "on the nominals" for that drive model. Still slow compared to modern SSD storage and hybrid drives, but it shows our drive isn not dying.

On your iMac the external SSD solution my wise colleagues have already mentioned, and using the least expensive UBS3 option, would post Write/Read rates of about 400MB/sec. A Thunderbolt external device would be faster but, for your older model, has an unattractive cost/benefit ratio. 400MB/sec will feel like a breath of fresh air!

Again thank you for the follow-up. It helps everyone!

AJ

Happy to Help!

I do apologize, but I forgot to link my user tip on setting up the external SSD, should you choose that route:

Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community.

-Jack

With due respect your 2012 is now 12 years old so it’s time to replace it. Jacks suggestion is good however you also may want to consider a Mac Mini with a good quality 27” display, or consider a MacBook Air with an external display. In short you have a lot of options open.