Mac mini 2020 m1 8GB running slower and slower - Also restricted access as the administrator

Question

Mac mini 2020 m1 8GB running slower and slower - Also restricted access as the administrator

Hi All, I have been an Apple customer for over 15 years and always found the products reliable and user friendly. Over the past two years I notice the performance of my Mac mini m1 2020 getting worse and worse. I am tech savvy and understand the importance of keeping OS systems up to date etc. Sometimes when a new update arrives I'll wait a few weeks until my DAW (studio one 6) and 3rd party programmes are compatible. Recently when I tried to set finder to show all files sizes the option to tick is visible but it is shaded so I cannot tick the box. When I go into permissions to change a pop telling me I don't have permission appears even though I am logged in as admin. My question is, does anyone else experience these issues or am I totally missing out on something.

Thank you for reading and hope to hear some feedback.. I am strongly considering going back to windows at this stage.

Posted on Sep 18, 2024 1:03 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Sep 20, 2024 4:54 AM in response to Christopher270Xdi

I don't think it's a good idea to get a new Mac as there is almost certainly something simple that could cure the problems you are experiencing.

Are you by any chance using CleanMyMac or Chrome as both have been suspected of causing app slowdowns?

Reply

Answer 2

John Galt

Level 10

146,744 points

Sep 20, 2024 6:54 AM in response to Christopher270Xdi

EtreCheck does not alter your Mac in any way. It does not require an installation procedure, does exactly nothing when it is not actively running, and it leaves nothing behind should you want to get rid of it. It just needs to be downloaded and run from wherever it resides — which will be in ~/Downloads unless you chose a different location for downloaded files.

Reply

Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

146,744 points

Sep 18, 2024 7:19 PM in response to Christopher270Xdi

Instructions for using EtreCheck and posting its report to the Community are here: How to use the Add Text Feature When Posting Large Amounts of Text, i.e. an Etrecheck Report - Apple Community

Reply

Answer 4

OldGoat67

Level 3

590 points

Sep 18, 2024 3:30 PM in response to Christopher270Xdi

Hi Christopher270Xdi,

you might consider downloading and trying EtreCheck which is free, reliable and might shed some light on your performance problems..you can also run Activity monitor which is built into the MacOS and will let you force quit everything on your Mac if you think it’s hogging resources. As for permissions, are you running Catalina ( Mac OS 10.15 ) or later ? It’s my understanding that Catalina and later locks down permissions ( and other things) … here’s how to change permissions for files/folders/disks on Mac

Change permissions for files, folders, or disks on Mac - Apple Support (CA)

John B

Reply

Answer 5

Sep 20, 2024 3:34 AM in response to OldGoat67

Hi John, yes I will download it now and post the report. Thank you for posting the link on how to change permissions. I have tried that multiple times to no avail. I can select a folder on my desktop (one I created) and change permissions the same way your link describes. However when "get info" on my Mac HD and try change permissions it tells me I don't have the necessary permission

this happens on my MacBook Pro and Mac mini.

I have never set up a second user on any machine, I am the only user of both machines since new.

Reply

Answer 6

Sep 20, 2024 7:10 AM in response to Christopher270Xdi

Etrecheck is 100% safe.

It was developed many years ago by a much respected member of these Apple forums to help diagnose faults in Macs.

Reply

Answer 7

Sep 20, 2024 3:44 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Hi Ian,

Yes I booth from internal drive (256gb) on Mac mini, store all of my music and large files on external SSD (recently purchased and has optimal speed transfer rate) it still has over 500gb space. My internal drive has over 100GB space left.

Touching on what old goat above or John B mentioned, I use activity monitor and when I have a song session open on my DAW (studio one 6) with very few tracks and plugins activity monitor reports studio one as using 130 -150% of cpu. I have all settings on the DAW correct (pretty sure) correct buffer size for recording then change it when mixing and editing, plug in naps etc... it's just almost as if no matter what I do the only thing that will work is buying a new Apple machine with higher RAM etc. My concern is, will it only be efficient for a couple of years before the same thing happens again, just like this Mac mini now..

THANK YOU ALL FOR TAKING THE TIME TO CHIME IN HERE.

Reply

Answer 8

John Galt

Level 10

146,744 points

Sep 20, 2024 5:14 AM in response to Christopher270Xdi

We cannot change permissions for the boot volume. That inability is normal and not related to the poor performance you described.

The EtreCheck report is likely to reveal some actionable information. Just please be sure to follow the instructions I posted. Details matter.

Reply

Answer 9

Sep 20, 2024 6:19 AM in response to Ian R. Brown

Hi Ian, no I'm not using any of them. I never download any of that stuff. I use safari and keep my drives clean of unneeded files etc. I am a bit sceptical about downloading EtreCheck but I feel like it's a genuine recommendation from John so will do that after work tonight.

Reply