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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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261 replies

Jan 26, 2014 9:19 AM in response to zeloeistotheo

I've tried this fix with no success. It still takes forever for files I've saved to show up in the file dialog, and I never had this problem prior to Mavericks. My workflow is to save a file in Photoshop, then load it into Wordpress. This process used to take about 2 seconds, and now it takes about 30 seconds, as I sit there and wait for the file that I saved to show up in the open file dialog. I noticed if I leave a finder window open, the file shows up there a couple of seconds earlier, but it's still painfully slow.


Any further advice? Apple, are you working on a fix?

Feb 2, 2014 1:54 PM in response to mdrproductions

Disabling AppNap worked for me also.


Prior to that, I tried someone else's solution of making sure that the scroll bar was always showing, and the option of the # in front of text in terminal and setting the DNS address to Google's. Nothing made a massive difference. I would say that populating the content seemed to occur a little faster. But dragging a file or folder from one directory into another meant at least a 10-second beach ball.


I went back to Pathfinder, as Finder was a complete joke.


With AppNap off, Finder is now workable again.


This broken Finder issue occurred twice; post-upgrade from Mountain Lion and also from a fresh install.


Apple, you listening?

Feb 2, 2014 6:48 PM in response to kufan0001

I have also done a fresh install and even purchased a new machine. Commented out lines of code through the terminal and disabled app nap. I still have the same problem. It only happens for me when opening the finder from one of my Adobe Creative Cloud applications to save or open a new file. It takes about 10-20 seconds for the finder to populate. It's significantly cutting into production time for my video editing workflow. Not to mention that my Final Cut Studio 3 has slowed down significantly with the OS upgrade as well. My old machine with half the ram and graphics performance did better with video editing in FCS3 and Mountain Lion.


I just bought a new computer and I should expect that it would perform as well as my old one that has half the computing power.

Feb 2, 2014 9:49 PM in response to djackson13

Yeah. I have to retract my statement also. It's just borked. I'm still getting a fifteen-second beach ball just to copy stuff from one directory to another. It's unusable.


Pathfinder is the way I'll have to go, until Apple decides to fix this truly paralyzing issue. And for apps that call on Finder, ugh.


How does this slip through the cracks?

Feb 3, 2014 6:08 AM in response to Integr8d

As previously noted, I've also seen this problem and though I thought I'd cleared it up by setting up my own internal caching DNS, it has started happening again just recently.


I think I'm like others. This is a new system. I expected more. Much better. The problem isn't just with the OS. I think it causes other side-effects, which I think are related. When my system goes to sleep or the lid is closed it becomes extremely hot. I'm talking, cooking-on-your-desktop or don't-travel-with-a-Macbook-hot. This is because it is keeping the WiFi and other parts running, while it continuously logs that it is attempting to offload data.


So, with the system a little more than a month old before I discovered it burning hot on my desk on morning, I called Apple and they remotely ran their diagnostics. They noted some odd things, and then the support person literally took a vacation and left me hanging. So, I called and got a new representative. This person asserted "since we've resolved your problem, and this is within expected behavior, is there anything else we can help you with" from the start. I asserted, "NO, we have NOT agreed that the problem is resolved and this is NOT normal behavior, I need a solution." Apple then "offered" that I drive a city away to have some 3rd party technician run diagnostics. I'm not physcially able to get to another city, so I pleaded to no avail for a replacement, being well within warranty and reason.


Point being. There is a shift in responsibility and care at Apple. #1 There is a problem with OS X. #2 If this problem or another is the cause of overheating while a system appears be asleep (Please, do check yours also) this goes far beyond frustration and straight to becoming a potentially dangerous and unsafe product. #3 What happened to honoring product warranties and good customer service.


My interpretation is that they are well aware of the issue and shirking responsibility and stalling.


Six years ago they shipped a system to me with a faulty logic board. I didn't even know it, they told me, and sent a replacement. Six years later, now, they could care less that this system is the tool that enables me to provide for my family and I need it to last to pay for itself and more.

Feb 9, 2014 5:26 AM in response to kufan0001

Is there any solution to this yet!? What the **** is Apple doing!? Seriously....I bought a brand new retina with full specs including a 1TB SSD drive and this **** is happening?

Everytime I log into OSX and open finder it would take around 1 or to mins to show files? Is this a joke? What is the SSD for then? And dont even mention trying to access finder from within another application like Ableton or even Logic, it takes ages! You better solve this fast or im going for a full refund Apple!

Steve must be crying in heaven and he wouldnt let this happen!

Feb 10, 2014 8:54 PM in response to rubyreddevon

Sorry to say this did not work for me, still slow to scroll and move files. This Maverick update has also caused problems for my Gmail in Mail which I have spent hours with and final ended up losing my Notes. Slowing my computer right down so I feel like I am looking a a ZX Spectrum waiting to load.


Apple I can't say anything good about you right now and I was just thinking about a new macbook pro with SSD.



Timothy-McCormacks-MacBook-Pro:~ ME$ sudo defaults write com.apple.Finder NSAppSleepDisabled -bool YES

Password:

MEs-MacBook-Pro:~ ME$


Seemed to run the process, possibly a little better although I might be imagining it and still freezes on scroll sometimes.

Slow loading Finder in Mavericks?

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