iMac slow/laggy with RAM continuously up to 6,00gb out of 8,00

Question

iMac slow/laggy with RAM continuously up to 6,00gb out of 8,00

Hi everyone, over the last ten years I have downloaded a lot of programs and application onto my 2013 iMac, then I decided to grow up and uninstalled most of them from my Mac.

Lately it's running really slow and laggy, with the RAM always at 6,00 gb out 8,00.

Now I only use the pc to study, but lately it has been very slow and laggy with the RAM always at 6,00 gb out 8,00 even tough I only have three applications open (Safari, Pages and Preview).

It takes several minutes before opening a tab in Safari, or Safari itself; the same with the other apps.

I'm pretty sure that all the stuff that i've downloaded during my childhood it's clogging it but I have no idea where to look to empty my RAM and make my Mac fast again.

I'd like to know if there's a way to distinguish Mac system processes from others, without having to reset my computer.

I've added a list processes running in this moment.

Thanks!

list of processes running

iMac 21.5″, macOS 10.15

Posted on May 21, 2025 01:25 PM

Reply

Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

66,758 points

May 22, 2025 08:46 AM in response to andreamattei1

The Hard Drive appears to be Ok. I don't see anything in the DriveDx report to concern me.

Launch Daemons:

[Other] com.macpaw.CleanMyMac4.Agent.plist (Not signed - Not found!)

Executable: /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac4.Agent

Clean up:

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac4.Agent.plist

/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac4.Agent

Executable not found

It appears you still have one CMM related file still on the system.

I believe you need to delete the following CMM file:

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac4.Agent.plist

Just double check that there is nothing here either:

/Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/com.macpaw.CleanMyMac4.Agent

Diagnostics Information (past 60 days):

2025-05-21 22:49:14 TrustedPeersHelper Crash (77 times)

First occurrence: 2025-05-15 17:00:42

Executable: /System/Library/Frameworks/Security.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/TrustedPeersHelper.xpc/Contents/MacOS/TrustedPeersHelper

Details:

dyld3 mode

This is likely related to the performance issues, but whether it is the source or just another symptom I don't know. 77 crashes of a macOS system feature is a problem. I don't know what the "TrustedPeersHelper" is or does without some research.

Edit: As mentioned by @den.thed, the Hard Drive is slow, but otherwise is not showing any warning signs in the DriveDx report. Those drive speeds from the EtreCheck report are a bit slower than normal, but not abnormal for a Hard Drive especially a slow one that Apple uses. Booting from an external USB3 SSD would give you much better performance at it would provide about 500MB/s transfers instead of 30MB/s.

Reply

Answer 2

May 22, 2025 08:04 PM in response to den.thed

den.thed wrote:

2) For some reason your 1T Hard Drive is is split into two partitions or volumes...?

Something else odd. From the EtreCheck report:

disk0s3 - B******P (MS-DOS FAT12) 121.76 GB (88.99 GB used)

Mounted Volumes:

disk0s3 - B******P

Filesystem: MS-DOS FAT12

Mount point: /Volumes/B******P

Used: 88.99 GB

Size: 121.76 GB

Free: 32.76 GB

Note: FAT12 (the old floppy disk filesystem), not FAT32.

FAT12 volumes can have a maximum of 65,536 (2^16) sectors of 512 (2^9) bytes each, for a maximum volume size of 32 MB (not GB). What purpose would a FAT12 filesystem serve on any modern hard drive – or for that matter, any modern USB flash drive?

Reply

Answer 3

May 22, 2025 11:26 PM in response to Servant of Cats

That one is the Bootcamp partition, I honestly don't know why it's in FAT12, I've used the Bootcamp built-in application to make that partition years ago.

Anyway I use that partition once or twice in a year and it's pretty empty, I have never downloaded there any apps or some other stuff, it's all system files.

It shouldn't be causing problems since I alway run in Macintosh, but I'm no expert xD.

Reply

Answer 4

HWTech

Level 9

66,758 points

May 25, 2025 11:41 AM in response to andreamattei1

The Hard Drive looks Ok.

The "routined" and "TrustedPeersHelper" crashes seem to be a problem. Try turning off iCloud to see if that helps. I saw some information that toggling iCloud off & on helped with the "routined" crashes for some, but those crash reports were a bit different than yours.

Reply