iMac Suddenly Super Slow

[Joe]

Yes....things get bogged down if you don't clean them out and tune them up occasionally.

[born2print]

I grabbin that onyX, worth a shot...

[wonderings]

I grabbin that onyX, worth a shot...

Make sure you get the right version for your OS. With each new Mac OS there is a specific version of Onyx for it.

[born2print]

yes, I noticed that, ran a few things... we'll see...

[StudioMonkey]

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.

[Joe]

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.

My iMac at home is getting that way. I just bought a 1 TB SSD I am going to put in it once I get brave enough to remove the glass on it which was applied at the factory with industrial strength double sided tape then remove the display and swap out the drive. Then a fresh install of Mojave. Should get a few more years of use out of it after that.