My macbook pro has become very slow

Start by quitting Chrome.

Ways to help make a slow Mac faster

17 Reasons Why Your Mac Runs Slower Than it Should

Slow Mac Performance? This Article Solves It!

Fix slow start-ups in OS X | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

6 Easy Tips to Speed Up OS X Yosemite on Your Mac

Avoid using any third-party software that claims to clean up your computer. Usually this software does more bad than good. Furthermore, you don't need it. Note that all computers will become slower over time even under normal use. Experienced users typically erase the hard drive and do a clean install from scratch at least once a year or whenever installing a major OS upgrade. Of course doing so also means you must maintain regular and multiple backups.

Add more RAM or cut back on the number of concurrently running applications and utilities. Remove unnecessary software such as anti-malware and software that promises to clean your Mac. Check for runaway processes: Runaway applications can shorten battery runtime, affect performance, and increase heat and fan acti… Also see:

Pre-Mavericks

Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time (>=70,) then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.

Mavericks and later

Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the View menu. Click on the CPU tab in the toolbar. Click twice on the %CPU column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of %CPU, then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.

When you see a beachball cursor or the slowness is especially bad, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages

from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above.

Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.

Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.

The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.

Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

When you post the log extract, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

Julie Lauren wrote:

I ran an etrecheck and was hoping someone who understands what any of this means could give me some feedback. Is there a simple thing I could do to speed it up or do I need to take it to the apple store. I'm embarrassingly uneducated about this!

Problem description:

very slow computer- constant spinning wheel

Disk Information: ℹ️

ST9500325ASG disk0 : (500.11 GB)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / : 499.25 GB (117.06 GB free) - 3 errors

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-8A8 disk4 : (4.06 GB)

Hello Julie,

Your hard drive is failing. You also don't appear to have a Time Machine backup. The first thing you need to do is backup your computer. Then get the hard drive replaced. I suggest replacing the hard drive with an SSD. And as long as you are spending money and opening the machine, get some additional RAM too. You clearly need it for modern software like Chrome.

Finally, if you add up the price of a backup disk, an SSD, and new RAM chips, not to mention the cost to have it all installed, you might want to consider a completely new machine. The logic board can fail on older machines and I would hate to have you spend $500 and then still need to buy a new machine in a few months. It is something to consider.

What sort of errors does EtreCheck report? Are these soft or hard errors? Why does it mean the drive is failing if those errors can be repaired by Disk Utility?

Hello Kappy,

Those are kernel disk I/O errors. There is no official document saying they mean anything. Just an educated guess. However, they do not go away. The log files (or snippets thereof) that EtreCheck looks at may get rotated. In general, it doesn't bother me much to proclaim a hard drive to be dead. In most cases, there is no cheaper, easier, or quicker repair that can be made.

I was just curious because often users post their report but state their drives seems OK. Wasn't quite sure if the errors meant anything. Hate to have someone replace a perfectly good drive when they don't have to. 🙂

You can't really blame the users. They run AHT and check SMART status and everything says "verified". Why shouldn't they think their hard drive is fine when the system tells them so? From my own personal experience, and many EtreCheck reports, it seems clear that 2-3 years is the lifespan of a notebook hard drive. I have been automatically replacing my own hard drives after a couple of years, even if it is sill good. I consider them to be consumables like brakes on a car. They just wear out over time. In a few years, most people will be on SSDs and this will be a dim memory.

I think that was pretty much the case in the BackBlaze and Google studies. Despite manufacturer claims most consumers can expect the drive to last the term of the warranty - 3 yrs - if one even exists.

I've had good experiences with my drives. They all have lasted past the warranty (those that I've had that long.) But I'm not one that uses my systems 24/7. I have gradually been changing to SSDs, but who knows exactly how long they really last. I don't think there has been a long-term study in a server-based environment.