Q: Slow loading Finder in Mavericks?

Having suggested, earlier in this discussion, that App Nap might be the cause of our problems I now consider that it might not have been the full answer as occasionally my Finder still drags it's feet.  However, the solution proposed at:

http://osxdaily.com/2013/11/13/fix-finder-slow-high-cpu-use-mac-os-x/

has fixed it for me.

Whilst I was following their procedure I discovered that in addition to the com.apple.finder.plist file that was in my ~/Library/Preferences/ folder there were also at least a dozen similar files named variously com.apple.finder.plist.8HaLvbu or similar. Most of these had zero bytes so I deleted those too.

I note that Maan Waggass, elsewhere in this discussion, solved the problem by starting in safe mode. Perhaps safe mode clears out these rogue plists and refreshes the appropriate one. Does anyone know? It would be satisfying to know that between us we have landed on the same and correct solution.

In the meantime I am enjoying a sharp and responsive Finder again.

I didn't read through every post on this thread, so maybe someone else has reported this already.  From a thread on MacRumours http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1654986 it appears that the problem with finder and other apps' file containers, at least for me, can be solved temporarily by killing (Force Quit) com.apple.IconServicesAgent from the activity monitor. At least when I have the problem I kill that and the file list populates immediately. I found this because of the endless “com.apple.IconServicesAgent: Failed to write file ” messages in the console and searching on that. Is anyone else seeing this as well?  So for now I leave the Activity Monitor always running so I can kill that process.

Following up on this, I unchecked "Show Icon Preview" and "Show icons" in Finders "Show View Options" and so far the problem hasn't reoccurred even when opening a new folder that I haven't accessed recently. There is just a very short delay in populating the new folder list.

Problem is back again even with "Show Icons" disabled.   :-( 

See this.

Be sure to read the whole thread.

I am having the same issue as kufan......no problems using the finder directly.....it's only slow when accessing it through other programs like Adobe Lightroom or even iPhoto etc......

I only experience issues in the Save and Open dialogs. Finder by itself works just fine for me. Very responsive.

I've tried all of the following suggestions to get the Save and Open dialogs to work properly:

• Killing the com.apple.IconServicesAgent thread
• Using http://osxdaily.com/2013/11/13/fix-finder-slow-high-cpu-use-mac-os-x/
• Restarting to the recovery partition and repairing permissions and repairing disk
• Disabling icons and previews
• Killing App Nap

I've also uninstalled Default Folder X and tested without it. Made no difference. Any other ideas?

I tried all the things you mentioned too with no luck. Finder by itself was fine. Only open/save were slow.

Please try this, it's only thing that worked for me. I've always have WiFi off and connect via Ethernet Cable.

Once I disconnected my Ethernet cable all the Open/Save dialogs were fast in all programs. I don't know why though.

I disconnected it and restarted, and it was all fast. Once I reconnected the Ethernet cable, the 20-25 second wait came back.

Now I have to figure out why the Ethernet makes it so slow.

Good luck.

Have the same problem with my brand new Macbook Pro 15' Early 2013, thought it was SSD problem, but now, with this thread, I feel relaxed a bit. =)

Waiting for an update then.

Yea I have the same thing, when I start my mac up, and open any folder on the desktop, it takes a good 10 seconds for the files in that folder to show up. It happens in any and all folders on the desktop. This only happens after startup. Once I'm going, it never happens again, until I restart again. What the heck. Not sure how long it's been going on, just noticed it last night. I've tried everything, including re-installing Mavericks, and nothin has worked. Finder works fine, no slowness, just the files taking a while to load up on the folders.

Not sure if this might help any of you, it worked once for me but now my folders still take a long time to load content.     https://discussions.apple.com/message/23633340#23633340

Working workaround:

Use the following statements in Terminal.

sudo vi /etc/auto_master

In this file comment out /net with #  (#/net .....)

sudo automount -vc

Fixed.

  /net/suse.baranaba.com: 

The file open dialog everytime scans this share ... disabling the automount stops the slowdowns. And it makes rich and sexy. Do you loose something? No.