Slow loading Finder in Mavericks?

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Slow loading Finder in Mavericks?

I bought the brand new Macbook Pro Retina that came with Mavericks plus I upgraded my old Macbook Pro Retina to Mavericks before my new one came. On both computers I am noticing a few different things that are rather annoying.

When attaching documents to emails, etc... it is taking my finder forever to load the contents of the directory I am trying to access. It is doing this on both computers, so I am assuming this is something to do with Mavericks and not the new computer. It is rather frustrating because for my job, I am contstantly attaching documents to emails every day, but having to wait a good minute or two for a directory to load to find what I am looking for to attach is getting rather annoying.

Even my stickie notes load slow now when opening them in Mavericks and it has never done that before. They kind of appear laggy when loading. Usually they just popped right up.

Is anybody else experiencing this problem? Any suggestions for a fix? I really enjoy Mavericks but it seems to be messing with the overall performance of some things.

Posted on Oct 30, 2013 8:05 AM

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Answer 1

isd503

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44 points

Oct 30, 2013 8:19 AM in response to kufan0001

Try this: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/10/mavericks-issues-and-fixes/#slideid-23467 1

It helped my computer with the restarts and the permissions repair solved a few other problems too.

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Answer 2

kufan0001 Author

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Oct 30, 2013 8:20 AM in response to isd503

I will go take a look. Thanks so much for the suggestion.

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Answer 3

kufan0001 Author

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Oct 30, 2013 8:28 AM in response to isd503

Darn... no help with that fix.

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Answer 4

Oct 30, 2013 8:34 AM in response to kufan0001

yes indeed, I have the same problem. Most irritating.

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Answer 5

kufan0001 Author

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Oct 30, 2013 8:35 AM in response to audiomixer

Let me know if you happen to find any fixes or info that I may have missed. Thanks!

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Answer 6

Oct 30, 2013 8:48 AM in response to kufan0001

The fix mentioned above did nothing on the slow finder loading for me either.

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Answer 7

Oct 30, 2013 10:45 AM in response to kufan0001

I'm also having this problem. The Finder seems rather laggy in 10.9. When I go to rename or move files, things seem to slow down — to the point that when I go to move a file, or attempt to rename a file after it appears an initial rename didn't work, I get an error message (which I'll save and share here the next time it happens).

Also, when I go to move a file, I get the progress bar that seems to take forever — just to move a single little file. Strange, no?

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Answer 8

kufan0001 Author

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Oct 30, 2013 11:35 AM in response to kufan0001

I did do one thing that has semi helped my problem. I went to System Preferences then General and made sure that "Always" was checked for the Show Scroll Bars option.

This has helped my issue of it taking a long to show document contents when browing my files in the mail app to attach documents to emails.

It has not helped ALL the issues though as it still takes awhile to load document contents in other apps. Hoping maybe Apple realses a fix for it. Trying to be patient.

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Answer 9

Oct 31, 2013 11:51 AM in response to kufan0001

Same problem. When opening folders with my work in them that I keep on my desktop, the finder can take as long as 30 seconds to load the directory. Before 10.9, same folders opened instantly. I have a MBP Retina with 8 gigs of RAM. I shouldn't be having this issue. Must be a 10.9 bug of some sort.

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Answer 10

xixixao

Level 1

4 points

Nov 1, 2013 5:07 PM in response to kufan0001

Same issue here, MBP Retina 13inch late 2012, 8 gigs of RAM.

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Answer 11

Nov 3, 2013 1:34 PM in response to kufan0001

Same problem here. Opening or saving a file in any program often lags and doesn't immediately show me my files list.

For no real reason, I suspect the new Tags system is somehow responsible.

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Answer 12

tban

Level 1

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Nov 3, 2013 5:07 PM in response to kufan0001

Same issue here. Its very annoying.

While the folders take a while to show-up any contents, the finder memory shoots up. I think Apple has started releasing products without much testing - or maybe thats why Mavericks is free!

MBP Retina 15inch mid 2012, 16 gigs of RAM

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Answer 13

Nov 5, 2013 3:35 AM in response to kufan0001

This problem really negates any benefit that Mavericks may offer simply in the reduced productivity this slowness creates. I really struggled with it and was seriously contemplating reverting to the previous version of Mac OS X Mountain Lion. However, on reflection, I identified one of the features of Mavericks that could be responsible. App Nap. As I understand it, App Nap is designed to conserve energy and automatically slows down applications that are loaded but not currently active. If this is the case and it is applied to the Finder, then this could be the cause of our frustrations. On most Apps. in Maverick, using Get Info will present amongst other options, an opportunity to disable App Nap for the specific application. However, this option is not available for the Finder app. (/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder/Contents/MacOS/Finder).

I checked with Activity Monitor and discovered that the Finder process did get App Napped if unused so how to disable the App Napping? Happily, after some Googling, I came across these folks who had the answer:

http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/disable-app-nap-os-x-mavericks/

So I opened terminal and issued the following command:

sudo defaults write com.apple.Finder NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

Hey Presto, finder appears to be restored to its normal operating speed.

I suspect that to reverse this step, the above command should be issued with the argument NO.

If you try this, you do so at your own risk but I wanted to share it because of the frustrating impact it is having to so many folks.

Good Luck and please let me know if it works for you.

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Answer 14

Nov 5, 2013 5:48 AM in response to kufan0001

This problem really negates any benefit that Mavericks may offer simply in the reduced productivity this slowness creates. I really struggled with it and was seriously contemplating reverting to the previous version of Mac OS X Mountain Lion. However, on reflection, I identified one of the features of Mavericks that could be responsible. App Nap. As I understand it, App Nap is designed to conserve energy and automatically slows down applications that are loaded but not currently active. If this is the case and it is applied to the Finder, then this could be the cause of our frustrations. On most Apps. in Maverick, using Get Info will present amongst other options, an opportunity to disable App Nap for the specific application. However, this option is not available for the Finder app. (/System/Library/CoreServices/Finder/Contents/MacOS/Finder).

I checked with Activity Monitor and discovered that the Finder process did get App Napped if unused so how to disable the App Napping? Happily, after some Googling, I came across these folks who had the answer:

http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/disable-app-nap-os-x-mavericks/

So I opened terminal and issued the following command:

sudo defaults write com.apple.Finder NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

Hey Presto, finder appears to be restored to its normal operating speed.

I suspect that to reverse this step, the above command should be issued with the argument NO.

If you try this, you do so at your own risk but I wanted to share it because of the frustrating impact it is having to so many folks.

Good Luck and please let me know if it works for you.

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Answer 15

Nov 5, 2013 6:45 AM in response to rubyreddevon

I tried this and unfortunetly, nothing has changed. I too am contemplating a return to ML although I am sure they will eventually work this out.

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