Q: Slow loading Finder in Mavericks?

blurped wrote:

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

 

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:

1. Uninstall any apps that may complicate things with the finder i.e. TotalFinder, XtraFinder, etc, just to simplify things
2. Uninstall any unused apps, again, just to simplify things and get unnecessary bloat out of the way. (for this you may like to try the free app called AppCleaner).
3. Securely empty your trash
4. Power down, power back up--just to clean out caches, and terminate other background tasks.
5. Verify disk permissions and repair if necessary
6. Open up terminal and issue the command (above)
7. Cross fingers

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.

this helped me .. hope the fix stays after a restart!

Snaggletooth_DE you are a legend! Thank you.

I suggest everyone tries turning off the network and if this fixes the issue, apply the changes as per your instructions.

This seems to have solved the 30s+ Save/Open dialog wait for me too. Thanks a lot!

I had this problem too - but now, before some days, a wonder: it works normally - I do'nt know why!!!

A update in background???

Thanks for the helpful. I gave it a try. I am getting "command not found" when I put the command into terminal?? Not sure what I could be doing wrong. And if we want to re-enable Nap App - we do the command with NO instead of YES?

That's correct, to change it back to the default, you'd run the same command but with 'NO'

I have tried all the above suggessions including what blurped had suggested [...]

Here is what solved the problem for me:-

1. Opened Disk Doctor and clicked on Verify Disk

2. Verification showed that disk had some errors which needs to be resolved during reboot

3. Restarted the mac, and Pressed Command + R during restart

This will bring up the Mac OSX Utilities

4. Select Disk Utlitiy

5. Select Macintosh Hard Disk and click on Repair Disk

6. After Repair is done, reboot into Mac and open finder

Now everything loads up faster just like how it used to be in 10.8

That was one of my suggestions--and a good default option to start with whenever you're having mac issues

but as always backup first

Seems like the update to OS X 10.9.1 (just released a few hours ago) has solved this **** problem on my machine. Thank God!

Glad to know that the problem has been resolved. I was looking at the fixes they mentioned in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6065

The fix for our problem is not listed there. May be, they just does not want too much of a publicity on this issue ;-)

Dr. Wishbone wrote:

 

Seems like the update to OS X 10.9.1 (just released a few hours ago) has solved this **** problem on my machine. Thank God!

I'm running 10.9.1 and the issue is not resolved for me. 

I'm running 10.9.1 and the ******problem is back!!!

Yep, same here. 10.9.1 has not fixed the crippled Mavericks Finder on any of my Macs. I'm reinstalling Mountain Lion on my photo editing machine right now, because the RAW file preview lag is absolutely excruciating. I shouldn't be getting constant beachballs as I scroll through image folders. Quite pathetic when the OS's file browser doesn't work well.

Fantastic..changing the "show scroll bars" option worked! thanks

I'm running 10.9.1 on iMac 21,5 mid 2010 and on iMac 27 late 2012 (with fusion drive): I had same problem on both...

I tried all, but nothing solved the problem.

I read that if you disable wifi the problem disappear: I try and is true.

Yesterday I buy the new Airport Extreme: after installation my wifi network became more responsive and finder is again fast as ever!

Just follow below steps and your problem solved:

System Preferences > Network > Select you internet service (be it Airport, Ethernet etc) then click advanced tab > Select  DNS and enter the settings

BTW, Google server settings are- 8.8.8.8

Another option is to try turning off IPv6:

In System Preferences --> Network -> choose the Ethernet tab in the far left column --> Advanced button -> TCP/IP tab --> Configure IPv6: dropdown menu, choose Off --> Okay button.

The reason that turning IPv6 off may improve performance is that some DNS servers do not properly respond to IPv6 requests. As a result, your computer has to time out waiting for a response and then try a secondary DNS server.

In recent versions of OS X, IPv6 typically is set to "automatic" by default. You have nothing to lose by turning IPv6 to "off" and then seeing if performance improves.