Older iMac

Hello and welcome to the community 🤗

If your Mac is slow

• Your computer’s startup disk may not have enough free disk space. To make disk space available, you can move files to another disk or an external storage device, then delete files you no longer need on the startup disk. macOS can also help you optimize storage by storing files in the cloud and helping you identify files you no longer need.

• An app you’re using may require more memory than your Mac has easily available. To see how much memory your Mac has, choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then check the amount of memory listed in the Overview pane. See the documentation that came with the app to find out its system requirements.

• To find out how to increase your computer’s memory, choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, click Memory, then click Memory Upgrade Instructions in the lower-right corner. (Not available on all computers.)

• Quit any app that isn’t compatible with your Mac. For example, an app may require a different processor or graphics card. See the documentation that came with the app for information about its system requirements.
• To see what processor your computer has, choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Overview.
• To see what graphics card your computer has, choose Apple menu  > About This Mac, then click Displays. The name of the graphics card in your computer is displayed in the middle of the window.

• Quit any apps you’re not using.

• If you have problems with your disk, use Disk Utility to verify and try and fix any issues.

• Use Activity Monitor to see if a particular app or activity is making a large demand on your Mac.

Source : If your Mac runs slowly - Apple Support (CA)

For more help or questions

Come back us or contact Apple Support

+2 for etrecheck...

EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

Pastebin is a good place to paste the whole report if you capture the URL while there…

https://pastebin.com/

Workable but harder for me to work with...the Note tool on the bottom of this editor's toolbar, as shown in the image, to copy and paste the output from EtreCheck. In a Reply before you click post, look for this to add longer texts...

Hi, Rudyspilot2, thanks for posting your question here

I wouldn't take it in to the Geek Squad as I don't know if they are an Apple Authorized Service Provider or not, and that I could trust them to work on any Mac, let alone my Mac. I (and we) will do what we can to help you out. that's why I'm here, to ask questions, get answers and help, and occasionally help other fellow Mac users out..

First off, we'll need some basic info about your iMac, which you can find under "About this Mac" which is below the large Apple icon on the top left of your screen. What year was it made, how much RAM do you have installed, and maybe the size of your hard drive/SSD and if you have a hard drive installed or an SSD ?? ...Please do NOT post your serial number here as it can get you into big trouble.... That being said, have you tried the most basic stuff ?

a) reset smc/pmu and zap pram on startup 4 times

as per this link: https://www.macworld.com/article/224955/how-to-reset-a-macs-nvram-pram-and-smc.html

b) have you tried starting up in Safe Mode and seeing if your iMac gets a bit faster/works a bit better. You can do that by shutting it down and restarting, holding down the "Shift" key on your keyboard until you see "Safe mode" on your screen, then you can let go of the key....

c) If a) didn't do much and b) didn't do much, then it's probably not a software/application problem......

you could also download (and run) a copy of EtreCheck which should help you better pinpoint where you're having a problem...

I don't know anything about your iMac, apart from that you have one, it's running Mac OS 12.5, and that's it.... so you'll have to fill us in on some details, come up with a few missing pieces of the puzzle, so to say.... right now, I have very little to go on, so I can only give you general help.... the rest is up to you

John B

Etrecheck will provide a lot of information for troubleshooting.

What year/model is your iMac? What type of internal drive (boot drive), is it an SSD, or a mechanical drive (HDD)? How much memory? Do you have any anti-virus, security, or "cleaning" programs installed?

Hello!

+1 on running EtreCheck. EtreCheck provides valuable information on your Mac for easy troubleshooting.  

Jack