Onyx fixes a lot of things but it can be scary to flush out / run maintenance of stuff you don't understand. Plus I don't always have time for a reboot. I use Onyx when things get bad but for everyday monitoring / fixing I use ;
- MenuMeters ; info about processor load, RAM usage, Network traffic and more right in your menu bar. Recently rewritten for El Capitan and above. Free.
https://member.ipmu.jp/yuji.tachikawa/MenuMetersElCapitan/
- Memory Clean 2 ; free RAM scrubber from FIPLAB. Daily use because I have less RAM than I really need. Helps with eg PhotoShop etc. not releasing its RAM when it quits.
https://fiplab.com/apps/memory-clean-for-mac
When all that fails to solve the problem, as with my 2008 iMac at home I bit the bullet and did a complete reformat and reinstall. Before; so slow as to be almost unusable most of the time. After; like a new machine and faster than my 2015 work iMac. I hope it doesn't come to that for any of you but it's worth knowing that it can be a solution.
- MenuMeters ; info about processor load, RAM usage, Network traffic and more right in your menu bar. Recently rewritten for El Capitan and above. Free.
https://member.ipmu.jp/yuji.tachikawa/MenuMetersElCapitan/
- Memory Clean 2 ; free RAM scrubber from FIPLAB. Daily use because I have less RAM than I really need. Helps with eg PhotoShop etc. not releasing its RAM when it quits.
https://fiplab.com/apps/memory-clean-for-mac
When all that fails to solve the problem, as with my 2008 iMac at home I bit the bullet and did a complete reformat and reinstall. Before; so slow as to be almost unusable most of the time. After; like a new machine and faster than my 2015 work iMac. I hope it doesn't come to that for any of you but it's worth knowing that it can be a solution.