Besides running slowly in general, starting to play a song in Music is slow. When I click on a song to play, it takes a long time for the song to start to play.
I am not tech savvy. I ran EtreCheck and deleted the unsigned items but I don't know how to clean up the orphan files or kernel extensions to help with speed.
Appreciate any help you can offer. Thanks!
MacBook Air (2018 – 2020)
The items under "Minor Issues" including orphan files & kernel extensions are mostly just notes for your information, they are generally not problems. I would not advise attempting to remove them. You would first need to identify exactly what they are; and removing them is not something for the average user to do. They are unlikely to be causing you any problems.
The items under "Minor Issues" including orphan files & kernel extensions are mostly just notes for your information, they are generally not problems. I would not advise attempting to remove them. You would first need to identify exactly what they are; and removing them is not something for the average user to do. They are unlikely to be causing you any problems.
One of the basic problems is that your drive is getting too full. Try to remove 50-100GB by copying files to an external drive or simply deleting them. It's a good idea to keep your system drive less than 80% full.
You are also using Google Chrome, which is a known resource hog. You will get better performance overall if you remove Chrome and use Safari, Firefox or Brave browser instead.
Your 2018 MBAir is also a low-end model and is at the bottom of the Sonoma compatibility list, indicators that it only just qualifies for Sonoma. Both of these factors are at play with the general slowness you are seeing.
Thank you--I'll work on moving or deleting files from the hard drive. I've also begun to get the key sticking issue (spacebar needs to be pressed a couple of times, getting multiple letters with one press) so it may be time for a new MacBook anyway--how much memory would you recommend if I purchased a new MacBook Air?
Between Firefox and Brave, which browser do you prefer?
Regarding RAM (memory) I recommend at least 16GB.
Regarding browsers, I have been using Firefox for many years without any problems; many versions on many different Macs. After I install Firefox, I always add these two plugins: uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. Firefox is a very secure browser but these two plugins add extra protection by blocking ads & trackers.
This computer already has 16 GB RAM and 500 GB storage.
How do I clean up "orphan files" or "kernel extensions"?
MacBook Air 2018 running very slowly
