IMac (2019) desktop slowing down.

[helenand daniel]

Not sure what is the best way to fix this. Clean the hard drive? I have done Disk Utility. Any advice?

 

[TonyAguila]

Not sure what is the best way to fix this. Clean the hard drive? I have done Disk Utility. Any advice?

What version of macOS? Type of hard drive (SSD or HD; size, free space)? How much RAM? All these can impact the performance of your Mac. How about Time Machine backups?

 

[Elizabeth Wilcox]

Hello I have Mac Desktop - Ventura, 8 GB, 703 GB remaining of 1 TB.
It is running slow and sticky. I dont know how to offload unnecessary programmes etc which may be clogging the system..photos, videos..I dont play games online either..any ideas please, or do I need to take it to a techno person? Thanks. Liz

 

[TonyAguila]

Hello I have Mac Desktop - Ventura, 8 GB, 703 GB remaining of 1 TB.
It is running slow and sticky. I dont know how to offload unnecessary programmes etc which may be clogging the system..photos, videos..I dont play games online either..any ideas please, or do I need to take it to a techno person? Thanks. Liz

What kind of drive are you running on, HD or SSD? You have plenty of available space on the drive, but if this is a hard disk, with your limited RAM (8 GB), your system will resort to swapping memory between the real memory and the drive.

What model Mac is this, and do you usually have a number of apps running at the same time?

I’m on a Mac Studio Max, Ventura 13.1, 2 terabyte internal SSD, and 32 GB of memory, and I’m still very careful not to run too many apps at the same time so as to avoid memory swapping.

 

[Elizabeth Wilcox]

Hello I have Mac Desktop - Ventura, 8 GB, 703 GB remaining of 1 TB.
It is running slow and sticky. I dont know how to offload unnecessary programmes etc which may be clogging the system..photos, videos..I dont play games online either..any ideas please, or do I need to take it to a techno person? Thanks. Liz

Hello. I am not sure what model my MacDesk Top is, but I think it originated as a Snow Leopard before all updates. Also, I think it uses the Hard Drive, and how do i find this out? thanks for the answers

 

[TonyAguila]

Hello. I am not sure what model my MacDesk Top is, but I think it originated as a Snow Leopard before all updates. Also, I think it uses the Hard Drive, and how do i find this out? thanks for the answers

In Finder, click on the  (leftmost on the menu bar) and select About This Mac. A window will open displaying the model of your Mac, the amount of memory, and the macOS version.

Click More Info… to open a second window. It will display more details about the Mac. To the bottom is Storage, showing the size of the drive and free space. It will not indicate if it’s a hard drive or SSD. You will need to launch Disk Utility to get that information. The information will be on the sidebar, very top, if it’s the internal drive. It will specify if it’s HD or SSD. Disk Utility, in case it’s not on the dock, can be found in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder.

Your 2019 iMac probably came with macOS Mojave and an SSD. Maybe the information you garner from About This Mac… and Disk Utility will give us all the data.

 

[Elizabeth Wilcox]

Hello and thanks for the reply. Well, my Mac Desktop is not actually a Snow leopard, my husband has inherited that one..I think it is a Montana..can't remember, as its had 2/3 updates since I bought it.
2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Corei5. 8 GB 2133 MHz. DDR4. Memory
Ventura 13.0.1. Macintosh HD. 702.55 GB available of 1 TB. I hope this helps.
Sticky apps seem to be: Microsoft Word for Mac; ITunes/Music; IMovie; Free Conference Call. Of course I dont use them all the time, not at the same time... Not sure if I need: Adobe Lightroom; Dropbox; ExpressZip?
How do I offload them, and how do I use SSID please?

 

[TonyAguila]

Hello and thanks for the reply. Well, my Mac Desktop is not actually a Snow leopard, my husband has inherited that one..I think it is a Montana..can't remember, as its had 2/3 updates since I bought it.
2.3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Corei5. 8 GB 2133 MHz. DDR4. Memory
Ventura 13.0.1. Macintosh HD. 702.55 GB available of 1 TB. I hope this helps.
Sticky apps seem to be: Microsoft Word for Mac; ITunes/Music; IMovie; Free Conference Call. Of course I dont use them all the time, not at the same time... Not sure if I need: Adobe Lightroom; Dropbox; ExpressZip?
How do I offload them, and how do I use SSID please?

There is no need to “offload” apps because you have sufficient disk space. Your main problem is the small amount of memory (8GB). That memory is used for running system files, extensions, caches, etc. Then as soon as you launch applications they start taking “bytes” from the remaining available memory—meaning it will be a lot less than 8 gigs. To get a picture of your memory usage, launch Activity Monitor located in /Applications/Utilities. When the window opens, click on the Memory tab, making sure that the arrow to the right of the Memory column is pointing down so that the highest quantity is at the top.

Then at the bottom of the window is the Memory Pressure section,

In the example, you will see a green bar running across the bottom of the MEMORY PRESSURE box. That means there is plenty of available memory, as shown to the right (Physical Memory : 32.00 GB, Memory Used: … etc.) When you start to experience the slow-down, my guess is that the green bar will be fatter, and as more memory is used, it will turn yellow, and then red. Keep in mind that memory is used to run the system, mainly in the background, then everything else that you open (Mail, Safari, Word, etc.) as well as files that you open with these applications. As you run out of free memory, macOS will write some of this memory onto your drive. Then when you need to access them and you are low on memory, the system will have to first write (idle) memory to the drive to enable the information you need to be moved back into active memory.

If your drive is a hard disk, this operation will take maybe ten times longer than if your drive is an SSD. Either way, it will still take a lot longer that accessing information in RAM. Activity Monitor will literally only monitor your memory. To free up memory you can quit running apps that you can afford to close, either directly from Activity Monitor or by directly quitting those apps. The advantage in quitting with Activity Monitor is that, from the list, you have a picture of the apps and processes using the most RAM. Of course, in the above example, you cannot quit Window server. You will have to go down the list to select which apps to close.

Aside from the need to be conscious of your use of memory, you are fortunate that you have plenty of drive space. In some systems, with 8 GB of memory and say, 128 GB of disk space, the swapping will happen a great deal more. This is the main cause of premature drive failure in Macs. You may want to keep Activity Monitor running so you can keep an eye on this issue. Just keep in mind that Activity Monitor, in itself, also uses up a lot of memory.