Allan,
I have not installed the beta, I don't know why you keep on saying this
I am running 10.11.3 the build Apple released I think last week.

again, thanks for your help

Phil

Phil, I think Allan was referring to my mention of similar issues with the most recent beta version of the OS.

According to others, beta versions report wrongly to etreCheck -- and also according to others, discussing beta versions within Forums is improper.

I did both.  I found the etreCheck report very useful in cleaning up my beta OS.  But I can understand there may be issues talking about betas here since Apple developer betas are available only to testers who sign confidentiality agreements with Apple not to talk.  I don't know if the same applies to public betas, though, as this one is.  Apple should say, one way or the other; maybe one day it will.  Meanwhile, we must live in suspense....!

ah

and just so to close this for me, I ended up running etreCheck and found a bunch of corrupted sectors.

(side note, why is the new DiskUtility not fixing, not having repair options anymore?) anyway.

I booted in recovery mode, erased my HD, then restored using TM and when I ran etreCheck again, the bad sectors were gone.

so now I am running just fine.

so I stand corrected, thank you Allan for your suggestion. it did help me figure out what the problem was, I was wrong and you were

right.

thanks again.

Good news, Phil -- and I have some, too!

My Macbook Pro was slowing down due to my mismanaging an application called Deja Vu. http://propagandaprod.com/  It's a nifty tool that automatically creates copies of files, whatever's in the folders you specify, and saves them in a specified place on your Mac.  (In that way, it differs from Time Machine, which uses an external drive for saving files.) 

But you have to manage Deja Vu, and I didn't.  I set it up during installation to duplicate everything on my Desktop and then forgot about it, ignoring the reports it kept sending to me.  Each time I downloaded a flick from YouTube or another source, stashing it on my Desktop, Deja Vu made a copy and stashed it in Documents, in a Movies file. 

By the time I got the bright idea to check Deja Vu, it had duplicated 250+ GB of flicks.  My MBP's hard-drive is only 500 GB.  Needless to say, losing half its capacity made everything run slower, especially once my free space went below 100 GB.  I've since deleted the excess files and disabled Deja Vu until I can better manage its power. 

Also, I deleted a lot of video podcasts I'd forgotten about in unremembered stashes elsewhere on my Mac, not visible in my Finder.  (At least, I didn't see them.)  For this purpose, DaisyDisk, a great visual file-management program, worked like a dream, finding the files by type and deleting them.  My Mac is back, running fast as ever.  https://daisydiskapp.com/

I still get beachballs switching between applications, but this I chalk up to El Capitan's demands on my poor little 16 GB RAM.  Now they disappear more quickly.

I'm kind of disappointed that Apple has so dumbed down Disk Utility that it can't be used to do these things, as it's easiest to remember.  But that's Apple's way these days, keeping everything lowest-common-denominator simple.

In this discussion I learned a lot from Allan, especially how best to use etreCheck; I'm grateful.  And you too, Phil.  Thanks, guys.

Bob

I have been trying all sorts of solution to fix the mentioned issue. Few solutions that helped a little, bringing back my MacBook performance to normal were:

1. Killing the cloudd daemon and trashing an associated set of corrupted CloudKit metadata. Please refer the link below for the procedure.

http://osxdaily.com/2015/04/17/fix-slow-folder-populating-cloudkit-macosx/

2. Re-indexing Macbook HDD. Please refer the link below for the procedure.

Spotlight: How to re-index folders or volumes - Apple Support

Exploring the solution on the same, I came across an interesting fact, posted in pcmag, worth reading!! I am somehow convinced with the article.

"Why Apple Doesn't Want to Speed Up Your Mac"

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2486066,00.asp

Hope these help!!

(This was a duplicate of an earlier reply.)

I just switched from Yosemite to El Capitan, hoping to help w/ slow loading in Firefox. I live in an area w/ not such great internet speeds, but I can watch videos w/o interference. EC 10.11.4 seems, if anything, to have made the problem worse. No encryption turned on. No large programs other than FF, w/ man tabs, but all unloaded until I return to them. I also find I can no longer check disk permissions. The only check on Disk Utility is the general First Aid, which shows no problems. Attaching my EtreCheck, which also seems to show no problems. I use a lot of extensions on Firefox, but they're all pretty basic, relating to tabs, cookies....  I've tried removing AVG numerous times, using App Cleaner. These files still remain, but I've just dumped into trash.Thanks for any help.

EtreCheck version: 2.9.12 (265)

Report generated 2016-05-02 08:58:18

Download EtreCheck from https://etrecheck.com

Runtime 2:27

Performance: Excellent

Click the [Support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Details] links for more information about that line.

Problem: Beachballing

Description:

Beach ball with every page opening w/ Firefox.

Hardware Information: ⓘ

    Mac mini (Late 2014)

    [Technical Specifications] - [User Guide] - [Warranty & Service]

    Mac mini - model: Macmini7,1

    1 2.8 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2-core

    8 GB RAM Not upgradeable

        BANK 0/DIMM0

            4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

        BANK 1/DIMM0

            4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

    Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

    Wireless: Unknown

Video Information: ⓘ

    Intel Iris

        S24D300 1920 x 1080

System Software: ⓘ

    OS X El Capitan 10.11.4 (15E65) - Time since boot: about 7 days

Disk Information: ⓘ

    APPLE SSD SM0128F disk0 : (121.33 GB) (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

        EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

        Boot OS X (disk0s3) <not mounted> : 134 MB

        Joy (disk2) / : 1.11 TB (820.15 GB free)

            Core Storage: disk0s2 120.99 GB Online

            Core Storage: disk1s2 999.35 GB Online

    APPLE HDD HTS541010A9E662 disk1 : (1 TB) (Rotational)

        EFI (disk1s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

        Recovery HD (disk1s3) <not mounted>  [Recovery]: 650 MB

        Joy (disk2) / : 1.11 TB (820.15 GB free)

            Core Storage: disk0s2 120.99 GB Online

            Core Storage: disk1s2 999.35 GB Online

USB Information: ⓘ

    Apple, Inc. Keyboard Hub

        Logitech USB Trackball

        Apple, Inc Apple Keyboard

    Apple, Inc. IR Receiver

    Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Information: ⓘ

    Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Configuration files: ⓘ

    /etc/sysctl.conf - File exists but not expected

    /etc/hosts - Count: 1

Gatekeeper: ⓘ

    Mac App Store and identified developers

Kernel Extensions: ⓘ

        /Applications/Utilities/TemperatureMonitor.app

    [not loaded]    com.bresink.driver.BRESINKx86Monitoring (9.0 - 2013-09-20) [Support]

        /Library/Extensions

    [loaded]    com.Logitech.Control Center.HID Driver (3.9.1 - SDK 10.8 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

    [not loaded]    com.Logitech.Unifying.HID Driver (1.3.1 - SDK 10.8 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.cyberic.SmoothMouse (1.0.10 - SDK 10.8 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.sophos.kext.sav (9.4.52 - SDK 10.9 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.sophos.nke.swi (9.4.52 - SDK 10.9 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

        /System/Library/Extensions

    [not loaded]    com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.5.1 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

    [not loaded]    com.Maxtor.driver.PowSecDriver (4.2.8 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

    [not loaded]    com.cy.iokit.Morpheus (1.4.0 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

    [not loaded]    com.maxtor.iokit.IOFireWireMxBt (4.2.6 - 2016-04-25) [Support]

Startup Items: ⓘ

    AvgNetShieldLoader: Path: /Library/StartupItems/AvgNetShieldLoader

    MxBtDaemon: Path: /Library/StartupItems/MxBtDaemon

    OpenBase: Path: /Library/StartupItems/OpenBase

    Startup items are obsolete in OS X Yosemite

System Launch Agents: ⓘ

    [not loaded]    7 Apple tasks

    [loaded]    154 Apple tasks

    [running]    73 Apple tasks

    [killed]    4 Apple tasks

    4 processes killed due to insufficient RAM

System Launch Daemons: ⓘ

    [not loaded]    45 Apple tasks

    [loaded]    145 Apple tasks

    [running]    94 Apple tasks

    [killed]    4 Apple tasks

    4 processes killed due to insufficient RAM

Launch Agents: ⓘ

    [running]    com.Logitech.Control Center.Daemon.plist (2015-04-09) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.divx.dms.agent.plist (2014-05-28) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.divx.update.agent.plist (2014-05-20) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist (2016-01-16) [Support]

    [running]    com.sophos.uiserver.plist (2015-09-25) [Support]

Launch Daemons: ⓘ

    [loaded]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist (2016-04-16) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.apple.installer.osmessagetracing.plist

    [loaded]    com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Agent.plist (2015-12-21) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist (2016-01-16) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.rogueamoeba.instanton-agent.plist (2014-03-25) [Support]

    [running]    com.sophos.common.servicemanager.plist (2016-02-11) [Support]

    [loaded]    org.cindori.CCAuth.plist (2015-05-07) [Support]

User Launch Agents: ⓘ

    [running]    com.cyberic.smoothmouse.plist (2015-08-22) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.cyberic.smoothmouseupdater.plist (2015-05-05) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.google.keystone.agent.plist (2016-03-03) [Support]

    [loaded]    com.macpaw.CleanMyMac3.Scheduler.plist (2016-04-30) [Support]

    [failed]    uk.co.canimaansoftware.clamxav.clamscan.plist (2015-07-16) [Support]

User Login Items: ⓘ

    Flux    Application  (/Applications/Flux.app)

    Rogue Amoeba Schedule Helper    Application  (/Library/Application Support/Audio Hijack Pro/Rogue Amoeba Schedule Helper.app)

    MaxBack Engine    Application Hidden (/Library/Application Support/Maxtor/OneTouchMaxBack.app/Contents/Resources/MaxBack Engine.app)

    iTunesHelper    Application Hidden (/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

    LunaMenu    Application  (/Applications/Utilities/LunaMenu.app)

    OptimismAgent    Application Hidden (~/Library/Application Support/Optimism/Agent/OptimismAgent.app)

    CleanMyMac 3 Menu    Application  (/Applications/CleanMyMac 3.app/Contents/MacOS/CleanMyMac 3 Menu.app)

Other Apps: ⓘ

    [running]    com.google.Chrome.62112

    [running]    com.growlybird.notes.51552

    [running]    com.rogueamoeba.ScheduleHelper.162272

    [running]    com.sophos.autoupdate

    [running]    com.sophos.configuration

    [running]    com.sophos.intercheck

    [running]    com.sophos.macendpoint.Sophos-Anti-Virus.74592

    [running]    com.sophos.notification

    [running]    com.sophos.scan

    [running]    com.sophos.sxld

    [running]    com.sophos.webd

    [running]    com.stimpsoft.lunamenu.78112

    [loaded]    net.ACT-Productions.BSLoginLauncher

    [running]    org.herf.Flux.72352

    [running]    org.mozilla.firefox.58592

    [running]    org.mozilla.thunderbird.76512

    [loaded]    394 Apple tasks

    [running]    215 Apple tasks

    [killed]    5 Apple tasks

Internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

    JavaAppletPlugin: Java 8 Update 91 build 14 (2016-04-25) Check version

    FlashPlayer-10.6: 21.0.0.226 - SDK 10.6 (2016-04-22) [Support]

    QuickTime Plugin: 7.7.3 (2016-03-12)

    Flash Player: 21.0.0.226 - SDK 10.6 (2016-04-22) [Support]

    AdobePDFViewer: Unknown (2008-07-21)

    Default Browser: 601 - SDK 10.11 (2016-03-12)

    OVSHelper: 1.1 (2014-08-04) [Support]

    DirectorShockwave: 12.2.4r194 - SDK 10.6 (2016-02-23) [Support]

    iPhotoPhotocast: 7.0 (2009-12-21)

User internet Plug-ins: ⓘ

    RealPlayer Plugin: Unknown (2014-08-08) [Support]

Safari Extensions: ⓘ

    AVG LinkScanner - AVG Technologies, Inc. - http://www.avg.com (2012-01-10)

    Exposer - Calle Gustafsson - http://maypril.se/safariextensions/ (2010-08-29)

    Photo-zoom V10 - Joseph CM (2016-01-05)

3rd Party Preference Panes: ⓘ

    Application Enhancer (2007-11-11) [Support]

    AppTrap (2015-04-24) [Support]

    Flash Player (2016-04-16) [Support]

    FolderGlancePrefs (2006-11-01) [Support]

    Java (2016-04-25) [Support]

    Logitech Control Center (2015-07-04) [Support]

    MacFUSE (2011-08-31) [Support]

    Perian (2011-07-24) [Support]

    SmoothMouse (2015-08-22) [Support]

    xGestures (2006-01-19) [Support]

Time Machine: ⓘ

    Skip System Files: NO

    Mobile backups: OFF

    Auto backup: YES

    Volumes being backed up:

        Joy: Disk size: 1.11 TB Disk used: 294.33 GB

    Destinations:

        Time Machine Backups [Local]

        Total size: 499.76 GB

        Total number of backups: 26

        Oldest backup: 16/07/2015, 2:00 PM

        Last backup: 20/04/2016, 8:08 AM

        Size of backup disk: Too small

            Backup size 499.76 GB < (Disk used 294.33 GB X 3)

Top Processes by CPU: ⓘ

       125%    firefox

        22%    Google Chrome Helper(16)

        12%    WindowServer

         7%    SophosWebIntelligence

         5%    VTDecoderXPCService(3)

Top Processes by Memory: ⓘ

    2.79 GB    firefox

    860 MB    Google Chrome Helper(16)

    794 MB    kernel_task

    82 MB    InterCheck

    82 MB    Google Chrome

Virtual Memory Information: ⓘ

    23 MB    Free RAM

    7.98 GB    Used RAM (949 MB Cached)

    4.74 GB    Swap Used

Diagnostics Information: ⓘ

    May 1, 2016, 09:34:05 AM    /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/_2016-05-01-093405_[redacted].crash

        ???

    Apr 29, 2016, 12:27:11 PM    /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/SophosWebIntelligence_2016-04-29-122711_[redact ed].crash

        /Library/Sophos Anti-Virus/SophosWebIntelligence.bundle/Contents/MacOS/SophosWebIntelligence

    Apr 29, 2016, 12:23:18 PM    /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/firefox_2016-04-29-122318_[redacted].cpu_resour ce.diag [Details]

        /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox

    Apr 29, 2016, 12:21:26 PM    /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/firefox_2016-04-29-122126_[redacted].hang

    Apr 29, 2016, 11:57:55 AM    /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/firefox_2016-04-29-115755_[redacted].hang

Uninstall CleanMyMac3 and Sophos. They are a worthless scams on the Mac. They causes far more harm then good.

I ran etreCheck and discovered that my Late-2010 Macbook Air's 2GB RAM is insufficient to reliably run El Capitan.  Processes crash right and left.  And it's not upgradeable.  So much for that.

I use a MBP for most of my work.  It's kicked up to 16GB RAM and software-optimized, but still it beachball's a lot, even after I did a post-etreCheck disposal of auto-saved files, etc.

I'm wondering if all the slight enhancements El Capitan makes to Yosemite are worth obsoleting my MBA and having my MBP chug along.  I could go back to Yosemite and be quite comfortable.  What substantive capabilities would I lose in the process, if anything?

Maybe if you post the EtreCheck report we might be able to answer that question.

I suggest that you start your own thread with the EtreCheck report instead of hijacking this one.

Same problems, Phil.  Using Forums on on a one-by-one basis would make for a whole lot of articles to read in order to solve the same problems.

Nevertheless, I'll follow your advice.  There's quite a lot of chatter about how slow El Capitan is running, resulting in a rapid succession of updates.  Might find a more compatible problem set.  Thanks.

Thanks very much. I've wondered about both of them. I did run each of them in my quest to speed things up. Have deleted both. I also have Onyx and Omni sweeper. Are these ok? Do you recommend something for cleaning?

No. I strongly recommend against all of the so called "cleaning" apps. They are all scams. They do far more harm then good.

Ahmojee,

Onyx isn't a scam.  You won't find it popping up like MacCleaner or one of those crappy "fixers."  It's a reputable, well-liked software application from Titanium Software, a one-man shop in France.  Onyx's author, Joel Barriere, is accessible and personally helpful; he supports himself as a contract programmer.  Onyx is free.  I've used it since Snow Leopard days.  Joel has diligently provided a new (and improved) version for each new version of OSX.  You have my word, Onyx will do you no harm and will make managing your Mac much more efficient.  Joel also offers two other free applications on his website, Maintenance (a subset of Onyx processes) and Deeper, that you can use to test, tweak, and customize your Mac (much like TechTool Pro and Tinker Tools, only easier in my opinion).  Here's a link:  http://www.titanium.free.fr/.  Let us know how it turns out.

Thanks Allan. And Thanks Bob. I'm on my way to see the other titanium programs.