iMac slow down after 4 wonderful years

I suspect my daily use has accumulated hundreds of thousands of files of which the Mac must keep track. The Fusion Drive had previously been fast. Now ordinary screen and display functions take noticeably longer, even as apps do OK. Every previous Mac and MacBook has reached a similar point. I use Disk Utility and Cocktail to keep things healthy. Question: has anyone experienced similar, then backed up applications and files, wiped computer clean, reinstalled MacOS from scratch, and then brought back all the personal & business files plus reinstalled applications? Did yours get back its speed?

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), 10.13.2, 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7, 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Posted on Feb 25, 2018 2:49 PM

Top-ranking reply

Joseph_S.

Community Specialist

Posted on Feb 26, 2018 8:02 AM

Good morning PeterBphoto,

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities!
I understand you are experiencing some sluggishness with your iMac and are wondering if taking the time to up clean up files, backup your computer and possibley restore it back to factory settings will cause it to run faster. Unless there is a hardware issue or corrupt software, a little spring cleaning will almost always provide performance benefits for your Mac.
The first step is to make sure you have a backup of your computer - two backups would be even better. I use Time Machine to back up my entire system, and will usually copy my large photo, music and video libraries along with any critical documents to a second local external drive.
How to use Time Machine to back up or restore your Mac
The next step is to make sure your computer's operating system and applications are updated to the most recent version.
Make sure whatever hardware you have connected to your computer has the most updated sofware drivers.
How to update the software on your Mac
Check the storage capacity of your iMac. If it is getting too full, consider moving large files to an external drive. SSD drives (both internal and external) will significantly improve performance over regular platter-based hard drives.
macOS Sierra: If your Mac runs slowly
How to free up storage space on your Mac
You may also want to consider a RAM upgrade, especially if you are updating to macOS High Sierra, and/or work with memory intensive applications.
iMac (27-inch, Late 2013) - Technical Specifications

Memory
8GB (two 4GB) of 1600MHz DDR3 memory; four user-accessible SO-DIMM slots. Configurable to 16GB or 32GB.
Storage
1TB (7200-rpm) hard drive. Configurable to 3TB hard drive, 1TB or 3TB Fusion Drive, or 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of flash storage.

If, after doing these initial steps, your iMac still feels a little sluggish, then erasing the hard drive, reinstallling the operating system, and only transferring the applications and documents that you need using Migration Assistant will certainly make your computer feel like new again.
Consider the instructions below to make sure you are covering all of the bases:
What to do before you sell or give away your Mac
Take care.

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iMac slow down after 4 wonderful years

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