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why does my finder slow down when i connect to the internet

Why does the finder on my mac mini suddenly slow down when I connect to the internet. It's fine if I have no connection. Every search I try for a solution brings up hundreds of solutions for slow internet connections. But the problem I am having is local to my mac mini--the Finder itself slows down, but only when the internet is connected.

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Aug 2, 2020 10:56 AM

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Posted on Aug 3, 2020 1:20 PM

Might be a long shot but it's possible you have malware which is instructing your computer to download vast amounts of data when it's connected to the Internet. So when you disconnect from the Internet the Finder is OK. But when you reconnect to the Internet the malware takes over the computers processing power to do the downloads.


I suggest you download the free version of Malwarebytes and check for malware.

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Aug 3, 2020 1:20 PM in response to mac_mini_fan

Might be a long shot but it's possible you have malware which is instructing your computer to download vast amounts of data when it's connected to the Internet. So when you disconnect from the Internet the Finder is OK. But when you reconnect to the Internet the malware takes over the computers processing power to do the downloads.


I suggest you download the free version of Malwarebytes and check for malware.

Aug 3, 2020 3:52 PM in response to mac_mini_fan

That is an excellent suggestion. In the alternative, it may be that, for some reason, your internet connection has a slow speed. There are several sites out there which can test your connection and then will report the results. One site I use is speedtest.net. It's easy to do. If that turns out to be the case, I would contact the provider. Good luck.

Aug 4, 2020 2:24 AM in response to Ronasara

Ronasara wrote:

In the alternative, it may be that, for some reason, your internet connection has a slow speed.


That may be true, but a slow connection to the Internet wouldn't slow the Finder itself. The two are not really linked. A slow internet connection would only affect the speed that data can be up or downloaded to the Internet.

Aug 4, 2020 1:33 PM in response to The_Knowledge_Seeker

Thank you knowledge-seeker, I will definitely try Malwarebytes.


Are you aware of any hardware issues that would cause the problem I'm having? Like you, I originally thought it was malware so I looked at what was taking up a lot of CPU% using the Activity Monitor and watched what happened when I turned wifi on and off. I wasn't able to see any change however.


I will try Malwarebytes in any event and hope that helps, but if you know of a hardware issue, please let me know.


Thanks again for the advice.

why does my finder slow down when i connect to the internet

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