Q: running 10.4.11, computer painfully slow

Sell it and buy a new one.

Allan

You forgot to say what Mac that is, but how much free space is left on your hard drive?

Well you certainly need to start cleaning off disk space. The amount of free space is far too little.

I suggest that you dsownload and install OmniDiskSweeper. It will tell you the folders and files that are taking up the most space. Once you know that then you can make an intelligent decision about what can be delete and what need to be moved.

Allan

If you go to the Apple logo at the far left of OS X main menu, click it, then click About this Mac, a pop up window appears. There is a more info button you can click and a Mac system profile window opens.

Can you tell us the year, Mac model ID number, CPU speed and amount of RAM installed?

You may benefit from more RAM if we have more info about your iMac.

Hard drive getting full or near full?

Here are some of my tips for deleting or archiving data off of your internal hard

Have you emptied your iMac's Trash icon in the Dock?

If you use iPhoto, iPhoto has its own trash that needs to be emptied, also.

If you use Apple Mail app, Apple Mail also has its own trash area that needs to be emptied, too!

Other things you can do to gain space.

Delete any old or no longer needed emails and/or archive older emails you want to save to disc, Flash drive/s or to ext. hard drive.

Look through your Documents folder and delete any type of old useless type files like "Read Me" type files.

Again, archive to disc, Flash drive or ext. hard drive and/or delete any old documents you no longer use or immediately need.

Uninstall apps that you no longer use. If the app has a dedicated uninstaller, use it to completely uninstall the app. If the app has no uninstaller, then just drag it to the OS X Trash icon  and empty the Trash.

Also, if you save old downloaded  .dmg application installer  files, you can either archive and delete these or just delete the ones you think you'll never install, again.

Download an app called OnyX for your version of OS X.

When you install and launch it, let it do its thing initially, then go to the cleaning and maintenance tabs and run all of the processes in the tabs. Let OnyX clean out all web browser cache files, web browser histories, system cache files, delete old error log files.

Typically, iTunes and iPhoto libraries are the biggest users of HD space.

If you have any other large folders of personal data or projects, these should be thinned out, moved, also, to the external hard drive and then either archived to disc, Flash drive or ext. hard drive and/or deleted off your internal hard drive.

You may have to Purchase an external hard drive to move these files/data off of your internal drive to the external hard drive and deleted off of the internal hard drive.

Good Luck!

A 2006 iMac will run OSX 10.6, you will want to max out the RAM on it (will support 2 GB). Here is some information you will need:

https://support.apple.com/kb/HT3011

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1423

Here's the version of OnyX for OS X 10,4 Tiger here.

http://www.titanium.free.fr/downloadonyx.php

I recomend you install the complete 2 GBs of RAM into your iMac model.

With 2 GBs of RAM, OS X 10.4 Tiger will run well.

I do not recommend installing OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as 2 GBs of RAM is really not enough RAM for this version of OS X to run well.

That Stated, there is nothing stopping you (other than maybe the price, now) of upgrading to OS X 10.5 Leopard.

OS X 10.5 Leopard will run fine, also, if you install the full 2 GBs of RAM.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=OS+ X+10.5+Leopard

Correct and reliable Mac RAM can be purchased from online Mac RAM sources Crucial memory or OWC (macsales.com).

Here's a link to the RAM you need for your iMac model.

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/5300DDR2S2GP/