Beachball

alanainsusse wrote:

Why when I delete something go on to a different subject or edit something the spinning Beachball comes on and spins for 30 seconds or even a minute or two before I can do anything on my iMac

How much free storage do you have available on your drive?

Have you rebooted?

Have you tried a safeboot?

SafeBoot How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

These are the basics, and where I would start...

Download and run Etrecheck.  Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here in the ASC and recommended by Apple Support  to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

IMPORTANT:

Before running Etrecheck assign Full Disk Access to Etrecheck in the first window that comes up so that it can get additional information from the Console and log files for the report:

Also click the About… vurron and read the info to further permit full disk access.

Copy the report

and use the Additional Text button to include the report in your reply.

Then we can examine the report and try to determine the root cause of the problem.

Hi alanainsusse,

On older iMacs, please check your available RAM usage and your SSD activity on the Activity Monitor. If the activity on either of them reaches 50% or higher, please free up for stop unused programs on your computer to free up space on each sector on your computer.

If your Mac has a rotating hard disk, it could be an indication that the disk is failing.