Slow loading Finder in Mavericks?

I tried this method and the finder window is still very slow.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! I have tried everything on these chat forums. I have a $3,200 Mac Pro and a $1,800 MBP that is slow. I am a pro user in video, audio and motion graphics. I guess we have to start thinking of Linux and going over to Adobe Premier.

Apple is better than this, but I don't think they want to address this. It has been over a month now and I haven't seen Apple acknoledge the problem.

I was talking to a few people at a Xmas party last night and they agreed that Apple is becoming a Microsoft since the passing of Steve Jobs.

I kust hope there is another genius out there like Jobs that will start a company in give us the unsrupassed quality we have paid for.

BTW, I am tired of writing this propaganda in hopes Apple will see it, so this is my last post about this issue.

Well spoken, Nelsonmay - and so true, so sad. An OS that behaves like Mavericks does here on such a central issue and Apple doing absolutely Zero for months: unacceptable indeed.

And it all adds up: Final Cut ruined, Maps ruined, iWork ruined, Mavericks ruined.

Sad. Sad sad.

Yes Xmas Parties are a great source of technical wisdom. You were advised of how to go about troubleshooting your Mac but have chosen not to and instead just rant in someone else's thread, so there is not much anyone can do to help you repair you obviously bad system install.

Good luck

Pete

Well - I have bought a brand new MacBook Pro 15" Retina top model, where Apple installed til OS X Mavericks - and I'm going nuts over this problem all day.

So there we are.

Then start your own thread and try troubleshooting your problem, not just moaning in someone else's thread.

Pete

I have been troubleshooting left and right with all the posts. I have been going into terminal and trying things that the pro OS users recommend. There are too many people out there trying to solve this problem. I am at the point I am afraid to trust someone who adds a line of code and says, "Try this."

Anything I have tried, the problem starts over. I am losing time over this issue, and I am tired of no results. It is not only me. I get multiple emails about this post and constant problems users are having.

My job is not to sit here looking at threads and debugging an OS. I pay for a BMW because I want the thing to run. Not a chevy or GMC that breaks down an costs me money when I on the clock with my clients.

This is Apple's problem, not a third party and not the community. This is what we PAY for.

Response to Dr. Wishbone, I have stayed with FCP Studio3. I am actually using Adobe to get the 64 bit application when needed. I don't want to upgrade to Final Cut X.

Why are the many many millions of other Mavericks not complaining about issues? Who advised you to dump terminal coding into your system? Why troubleshoot using advice given to others for THEIR issues. If you are not going to post your unique problems then why bother posting here at all?

Good luck

Pete

Today I had the same problem on my new MBP 13" Retina with 512GB SSD, as I didn`t have the problem before, I thought, it`s because my MBP didn´t reboot since 2 weeks or more - so I made a poweroff, BUT the system didn´t finish for many minutes,(It was hanging in the gray screen mit the rayes in the middle).

So after about 5 minutes I hade to poweroff hardly by pressing on/off Button for many seconds until MBP is off.

Now after reboot, finder seems to be o.k. at the moment, but there is another problem I found: i started console becaus I wanted to search the reason for the finder problem BUT after a short time 30 sec - 1min console is always closing automatically

Any idea ?

So brand new MacBook pro also have this problem, not just for people who have upgraded from Mountain Lion to Mavericks. Thanks for clarifying that. I bet this will only get fixed by Apple if it is reported as a problem in the main stream news or atleast some of the tech websites like engadget.com writes about it. If any one knows how to get it reported, pls do.

Dr. Wishbone wrote:

Well - I have bought a brand new MacBook Pro 15" Retina top model, where Apple installed til OS X Mavericks - and I'm going nuts over this problem all day.

So there we are.

Yes my MBP is also brand new (already wizh haswell-cpu inside) and was already pre-installed with Maverik -

So it`s a factory clean installed system !

Then it is under warranty so take it back.

Pete

Just wanted to chime in on this too... I have a 2012 13" MacBook Air full spec (2GHz i7/512GB/8GB) and am having the exact same problems everybody else is mentioning.

From any application it takes a good 10-20 seconds for the "Open File" dialog to actually display the contents of the initial directory. Once those are loaded it seems to perform at regular speed if I browse to other directories.

In addition my Final Cut Pro X has become unusable due to slow file access. I can only assume that this is related to the main issue that is causing the slow Finder performance. Final Cut Pro X beachballs on almost every action, even just hovering over clips or trying to load clip previews.

I went to the extreme step of booting to the restore partition, completely erasing the hard drive and then redownloading and installing Mavericks. No change at all. The problem still occurs. I also did a fresh download of Final Cut Pro X and of course the problem remained in there as well. So the problem occurs on a freshly restored system with Mavericks and no other apps on it.

I had neither of these issues prior to "upgrading" to Mavericks so I am quite certain the issue is with Mavericks and not with the hardware, any system settings, or any third-party software.

As others have said, this is very frustrating and I am surprised that Apple has not fixed the issue yet. The file system and overall UI are some of the main things that keep me with Apple. The Finder speed is an annoyance, but the problems it causes within Final Cut Pro X are a literal show stopper.

I tried some of the solutions above and also stopped using Google Chrome, and now things seem to be running pretty smoothly.

But the idea of having to tweak core system settings in Terminal in order for my machine to function is not what I signed up for. It's downright Microsoftian.

I paid my dues with Windows for two frustrating decades of tweaking and fiddling with stuff that I had no business monkeying with. I am not a computer technician. I got a Mac so I could just do my work without having to be my own tech support, or having to send my machine off to the doctor every couple of weeks, losing valuable freelance work time. The comment about BMWs above is spot on.

Macs are supposed to just work. They should not need to be coaxed and stroked to perform well.

I found another post somewhat related on the finder here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3674156?answerId=17375674022#17375674022

it recommends deleting the finder preferences and then logging out or restarting.

After I deleted all the finder plist files and sidebar plist files as the forum post said - it seemed to now work

Please let me know if this helps - as soon as I did this the files started popping up quickly like that use to in prior OS versions.

blurped wrote:

ℹ It's absolutely worth a try. Here's why:

1) We know AppNap is a new feature that puts the finder to sleep when not in use

2) So logically we can infer that disabling AppNap will solve the 'AppNap' lag

3) We can fix it by going to Applications/Utilities/Terminal to issue a very basic command

➕ The command is:

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

ℹ Translated into English, it reads:

sudo = I am a user who has administrative rights on this operating system

defaults = My request concerns a default setting of this operating system

write = I am going to 'write' a change to that default setting

com.apple.finder = The default setting is in the Finder, which is an Apple application

NSAppSleepDisabled = The setting is called 'NSAppSleepDisabled' (aka AppNap)

-bool = I am issuing a boolean data command (a 2-setting command i.e. true/false, yes/no)

YES = I am saying 'yes' enable 'NSAppSleepDisabled' (so AppNap won't cause Finder to sleep)

⚠ This will NOT fix all issues related to OS X Mavericks Finder lag.

Why? Another issue is causing your Finder to lag or you issued the command wrong

Then what might the other issue be? A laundry list of possibilitiess...

What other things could I try?

1) Verify disk permissions. Repair permissions. (a quick and easy option)

2) Run a clean install of OS X Mavericks (a more time-consuming difficult option)

How do I do those things? Google it.

I hope this demystifies the "scary" command and/or explains why it might not work for everyone. 😎

Here's some follow-up information regarding my earlier reply to rubyreddevon:

I've tested this command on 3 macs running mavericks and it worked on all of them. However, I must add that:

1. Finder lag resolved both with and without issuing "sudo", most likely due to my configuration
2. 1 of the macs affected was a brand new, 15" Retina MBP--maxed out hardware yadda, yadda, clean install
3. The 2 older macs had disk repair run regularly (2008 mbp 15" & 2012 Macbook Air)

I suggest that the steps be taken in this order:

Thats just my 2 cents. Steps1-5 are just basic troubleshooting steps (+/- the restart). I hope it works for you, if it doesn't there could be other issues at play, which may be mavericks-based and/or system-specific.