Deleting Cache to open storage space

One thing that slows your Mac is running out of real RAM memory. This is your memory situation

Virtual Memory Information:

    Physical RAM: 16 GB

    Free RAM: 81 MB

    Used RAM: 12.42 GB

    Cached files: 3.50 GB

    Available RAM: 3.58 GB

    Swap Used: 2.43 GB:

That says you are currently simulating a substantial amount of RAM you do not have in a Swap file on disk, which is somewhat slower.

However, the report suggests you still likely have google Chrome AND Safari still open, even if all their windows have been closed:

Top Processes Snapshot by CPU:

    Process (count) CPU (Source - Location)

    com.apple.WebKit.WebContent (9) 93.92 % (Apple)

    Adobe Photoshop 2025 53.40 % (Adobe Inc.)

    EtreCheckPro 42.46 % (Etresoft, Inc.)

    WindowServer 33.02 % (Apple)

    Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) (11) 25.92 % (Google LLC)

Top Processes Snapshot by Memory:

    Process (count) RAM usage (Source - Location)

    Google Chrome Helper (Renderer) (11) 2.20 GB (Google LLC)

    com.apple.WebKit.WebContent (9) 982 MB (Apple)

    Adobe Photoshop 2025 701 MB (Adobe Inc.)

    EtreCheckPro 552 MB (Etresoft, Inc.)

    kernel_task 492 MB (Apple)

AND your disk is getting full and slowing down on Writes.

Best Practice for the boot drive is to leave about 20 percent FREE, and you have only 6.6 percent free at about 66 GB:

 disk1s2 - Macintosh HD - Data [APFS Virtual drive]

        Filesystem: APFS

        Mount point: /System/Volumes/Data

        FileVault Disabled

        Used: 906.95 GB

        Shared values

            Size: 1.00 TB

            Free: 65.79 GB

            Available: 116.99 GB

you need another drive to put some of your MacOS files on.

I see a 32 GB external drive, but the report says it is FAT32 format, useful for interchange but NOT being backed up because it is not a MacOS native format.

Caches are temporary stores of items that may be needed again soon. Caches are used to speed up your Mac. Deleting caches slows down your Mac, because now it needs to go back to the original item rather than accessing quickly from the cache. Deleting caches will NOT solve any of your problems.

Clearing the cache is not a solution. The cache will be automatically be rebuilt when that app is used again, so deleting the cache will just result in poor system performance.

I'm guessing your computer is running low on storage space, otherwise why worry about the cache. How much Free storage space do you have on your internal SSD? Ignore the very misleading "Available" storage space value since it is not synonymous with Free. Unfortunately the Free space value is only shown in Disk Utility or the System Profiler.

Also, please provide some more details on the issue your computer is having. You may want to run the third party app EtreCheck and posting the complete report here so we can examine it for clues.

How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting an EtreCheck Report - Apple Community

wazato wrote:

Thank you for clearing the misuderstanding. I have checked my "Free" space on Disk Utility. I have 71.11GB left.

I have a total of 1TB.

<Used> 16.32GB

<Other Volumes> 912.81GB

<Free>71.11GB

-------------------------------

Some problems I am recently having.

I use many Adobe software and they have recently been very slow and laggy. Moving a single image takes a few seconds when previously I did not have any problem.

Thanks for confirming. Please run EtreCheck and post the full report here so we can examine it for clues. See my previous post for links & instructions.

What Adobe apps are you using? Video, animation, or photo related?

Here are a few other observations:

The 32GB drive is most likely a USB stick which is connected as a USB2 device. Any access to a USB stick will be extremely slow. Plus the quality of USB sticks is very poor, so if that USB is connected & malfunctioning, then it can impact system performance even when the connected USB stick is not currently being accessed. Maybe disconnect the USB stick to see if anything changes.

More likely is the use of Norton LifeLock causing problems. Apps like this interfere with the normal operation of macOS at a low level where it can do the most damage to system stability & performance. Uninstall the Norton software by following the developer's instructions to see if that makes any difference on performance.

You also have an app installed which I've never seen before....digion. Unusual tends to be a good place to look when a system is having problems. I'm not a macOS software expert, so I have no clue about this software.

It also appears you have something from CleverFiles running all the time. CleverFiles is usually associated with Disk Drill data recovery which is a respected app, but the extension is labeled "SecureDisk-11". This could be another item which could cause problems. Is this perhaps part of their backup software? If so, then it may be Ok.

Make sure your Wacom software is completely up to date since I've seen people report issues on this forum after various macOS update patches. So keep Wacom current.

You also have a PepperFlashPlayer plugin installed. Flash is dead so you may want to remove that PepperFlashPlayer plugin.

And before you start doing any work on this laptop, you should have at least 100GB of Free storage space since that can disappear very quickly even you are not doing much on the computer. I had about 50GB disappear because of the macOS 26.3 update patch being downloaded to my system...once I installed the update, I got 50GB+ back. I've never seen such a drastic drop in storage related to a pending OS update patch (mine are set to download only which should at most have taken 5-12GB of space).

The most critical macOS storage value is the Free space value which is only shown in Disk Utility. Ignore the very misleading "Available" storage value shown every where in macOS since it is not synonymous with Free. Even the "Used" storage space value can be misleading under certain circumstances/conditions.