iMac very slow, Safari problems, EtreCheck help

Tesserax wrote:

Thanks for providing the EtreCheck report. After a quick review, here are my observations & recommendations:

Observations•

The good news is there are no major hardware failures showing up, but there are a few clear reasons the iMac is feeling slow.

The biggest one is that this 2017 iMac is still running macOS from a traditional 1TB mechanical hard drive, which is dramatically slower than an SSD (and Ventura really expects SSD-level storage performance).

• The other issue is the system only has 8GB of RAM, which is low for modern macOS + web browsing, so the Mac is already using “swap” (extra disk-based memory), which makes performance drop even more on a hard drive.

• The other major factor is that IDrive is using a very large amount of CPU in the background (over 50% at the time of the report). That alone can make the entire Mac feel sluggish, especially when launching apps or browsing. I’d recommend we first test performance by pausing IDrive temporarily and restarting the Mac. If the Mac suddenly feels faster, we’ll know IDrive is a big part of the slowdown and can adjust its backup schedule, reduce what it monitors, or reinstall it cleanly if needed.

• I also noticed several Safari hangs and multiple “coupon/cashback” type browser extensions installed — these can cause Safari slowdowns and freezing, so disabling them for testing is a good idea.

Recommendations•

Pause IDrive for 10–15 minutes and reboot the Mac to see how performance feels.

• Disable/remove Amazon Shopper Panel (it runs constantly in the background and is not needed).

• Disable Safari extensions like Rakuten/Karma/CouponCabin temporarily and test Safari stability.

• (Optional) Upgrade memory to at least 16GB RAM.

• (Optional) Move macOS to an SSD (this is the biggest overall performance improvement possible — even an external USB SSD boot drive makes it feel like a new Mac)

Note: I have the last two recommendations marked as optional as your 2017 iMac is now considered "Vintage" as far as Mac support is concerned. If you really don't want to replace this aging Mac, you should consider, at least, getting an external SSD that you can boot up this Mac with.

Thanks for providing the EtreCheck report. After a quick review, here are my observations & recommendations:

Observations

The good news is there are no major hardware failures showing up, but there are a few clear reasons the iMac is feeling slow.

• The biggest one is that this 2017 iMac is still running macOS from a traditional 1TB mechanical hard drive, which is dramatically slower than an SSD (and Ventura really expects SSD-level storage performance).
• The other issue is the system only has 8GB of RAM, which is low for modern macOS + web browsing, so the Mac is already using “swap” (extra disk-based memory), which makes performance drop even more on a hard drive.
• The other major factor is that IDrive is using a very large amount of CPU in the background (over 50% at the time of the report). That alone can make the entire Mac feel sluggish, especially when launching apps or browsing. I’d recommend we first test performance by pausing IDrive temporarily and restarting the Mac. If the Mac suddenly feels faster, we’ll know IDrive is a big part of the slowdown and can adjust its backup schedule, reduce what it monitors, or reinstall it cleanly if needed.
• I also noticed several Safari hangs and multiple “coupon/cashback” type browser extensions installed — these can cause Safari slowdowns and freezing, so disabling them for testing is a good idea.

Recommendations

• Pause IDrive for 10–15 minutes and reboot the Mac to see how performance feels.
• Disable/remove Amazon Shopper Panel (it runs constantly in the background and is not needed).
• Disable Safari extensions like Rakuten/Karma/CouponCabin temporarily and test Safari stability.
• (Optional) Upgrade memory to at least 16GB RAM.
• (Optional) Move macOS to an SSD (this is the biggest overall performance improvement possible — even an external USB SSD boot drive makes it feel like a new Mac)

Note: I have the last two recommendations marked as optional as your 2017 iMac is now considered "Vintage" as far as Mac support is concerned. If you really don't want to replace this aging Mac, you should consider, at least, getting an external SSD that you can boot up this Mac with.

Well, first your iMac is 8 years old and uses a Fusion Drive which is based on a traditional spinning hard drive and a very small SSD. I suspect the HD portion of the Fusion Drive is old and at the end of its life. You should download the free version of DriveDX and test the HD, not the Fusion Drive just the 1 TB hard drive. If ANY errors come up that confirms the drive is at the end of its life.

In addition, you only have the original 8GB of RAM. Adding more RAM will NOT make the computer faster however it will make it run more efficiently. If you do decide to upgrade it ONLY use www.macsales.com RAM as iMacs are very sensitive to RAM and Macsales.com has proven to the extremely reliable.

These things being said, please remember the computer is 8 and if it were mine I would consider replacing it with a new Mac mini and the display of your choice. Get one with at least a 1TB SSD and about 24GB of RAM and migrate the data from your iMacs Time Machine drive to the new machine. This will get you up and running quickly and reliably..

If short on funds you can clone your internal drive to an external TB drive like many have done and boot from that drive which can improve the performance