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El Capitan is slow???

Is anyone else having the issue of your Mac running wicked slow after the new El Capitan update? Word, Safari, Preview, and iTunes wouldn't open- they froze and I had to force quit them. Even typing this there is a major lag and the pinwheel appears. What's up with that? So far I hate how slow it's making my mac.

Posted on Sep 30, 2015 1:37 PM

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Posted on Sep 30, 2015 1:39 PM

Which version of OS X server are you running with ElCap.

70 replies

Oct 19, 2015 12:05 PM in response to mkgr

My Mac Mini 2014 was ok with Yosemite, now on El Capitan is running very slow, looks like the hard drive is always looking for something (it remember me when I was on Microsoft Windows :(((( ). I have already cleared Nvram, smc, disabled SIP, disabled Spotlight, reenabled spotlight, reindexed the hard disk, cleared cache, created a new user, updated El Capitan with all the latest beta release 10.11.1. Nothing works, I think that if you have an SSD you can really notice the differences, but with a mechanical disk El Capitan respond very slow compared to Yosemite. I think I will downgrade to Yosemite.

Oct 22, 2015 6:04 AM in response to mikelach2

I started unplugging drives. Notice "andrewfromquakertown" below. I believe this was one of the issues. The other was the indexing of the drives. Now that all the drives have been indexed and I suppose encrypted, the issue isn't present. I have a 4Tb drive that causes slowness when plugged in. This drive is used with a "Time Machine" backup and many other items. I believe it is updating the index when it is plugged in. Having dropbox, one drive, etc. hooked up as well external drives all contributed to the spinning pinwheel when El Capitan. Also, the "fire vault" encryption as mentioned.

Oct 23, 2015 6:10 AM in response to CarolineJ

You can disable it and it won't have any ill effects on the operation of your computer, HOWEVER, it's likely to be slow while it Decrypts what it has already encrypted. So if it's more than half way through the process, you may as well let it finish. If somebody hasn't upgraded yet, they may want to deselect those check boxes when they pop up during the initial restart.


Once the process finished (took all day for me), my 2 Macs running it are plenty fast. It also turned off the "dashboard" feature which can be turned back on in the system preferences..

El Capitan is slow???

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