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

This has nothing to do with RAM.

There are several issues with your iMac's internal Hard Drive.

1) Your 2013 21.5" iMac has a really slow 1T 5400 rpm mechanical Hard Drive.

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

3) The 1T internal Hard Drives Write and Read speeds are down to under 30 MB/s.

At this point I see three options for this obsolete 2013 iMac:

1) Backup both partitions or volumes, reformat the internal Hard Drive back into one 1T partition or volume, reinstall the macOS, then move your data back from the backups.

2) Get and run the 2013 iMac from an external USB 3.0 SSD.

see > Use an external SSD as your startup disk … - Apple Community

3) Replace it with a new 24" iMac or Mac mini and external display.

see > Mac - Which Mac is best for me? - Apple

Try using the following shareware app which lets you can check to see if you've removed all of the supporting files by downloading and running the shareware app Find Any File to search for any files with the application's or the developer's name in the file name.  For CleanMyMac software you'd do the following search(es): 

1 - Name contains cleanmymac

2 - Name contains macpaw

Any files that are found can be dragged from the search results window to the Desktop or Trash bin in the Dock for deletion.

FAF can search areas that Spotlight can't like invisible folders, system folders and packages.  

If you get warnings that the file can't be deleted because it is in use or used by another app boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and delete from there.

Note:  if you have a wireless keyboard with rechargeable batteries connect it with its charging cable before booting into Safe Mode.  This makes it act as a wired keyboard as will assure a successful boot into Safe Mode.

If it is a Boot Camp partition,, note this:

Remove Windows from your Mac using Boot Camp - Apple Support

"You must use Boot Camp Assistant to remove Windows, or a partition that was created with Boot Camp Assistant, from your Intel-based Mac.

WARNING: Do not use any other utilities to remove Windows or a partition that was created with Boot Camp."

Or, in other words, Bad Things might happen if you use Disk Utility to remove a Boot Camp partition. (Seems like Apple should have made Disk Utility a little smarter than that, but it is what it is …)

andreamattei1 wrote:

<etrecheck report.log>

Virtual Memory Information:

Physical RAM: 8 GB

Free RAM: 33 MB

Used RAM: 6.22 GB

Cached files: 1.75 GB

Available RAM: 1.78 GB

Swap Used: 122 MB

You might get different results if you ran Activity Monitor while you were doing stuff that required a lot of RAM. But it looks like you had enough RAM at the time that you generated this report.

Your Mac had 1.78 GB of Available RAM, which consisted of

• 0.03 GB of completely idle RAM ("Free RAM")
• 1.75 GB of RAM that was being put to use as a cache ("Cached files"). The idea here is that if the computer needed the cached information before it needed the RAM, it could save a slow trip to the disk to get a fresh copy of the data. If, on the other hand, it needed the RAM first, it could just allocate the RAM, because the master copy of the data still could be read (if more slowly) from the disk.

Your Mac had 122 MB (0.122 GB) of Swap Used. That means that at some point, it ran out of RAM and had to simulate more by swapping to the disk. Simulating RAM in this way is much slower than using real RAM, even when the disk in question is a SSD, but 122 MB is not a huge amount of Swap Used (relative to memory size).

Neither the Available RAM nor the Swap Used scream that the virtual memory system was being overloaded. Thus, unless you got much worse results from Activity Monitor while running real workloads, I would tend to assume that the slowness and lags are not RAM-related.

To get rid of CleanMyMac what many recommend is downloading and running FindAnyFile (the free version) and have it search for anything with the following:

• CleanMyMac
• MacPaw

FNF can find these files and also fully get rid of them.

After you have done that what I would recommend is backing up using Time Machine and then restart the computer into the Recovery Partition. In the Recovery Partition you can do a non-invasive install of Mac OS. What this will do is leave all of your data and apps alone however it will fill in any missing or damaged parts of Mac OS. I recommend this method because you have had CMM installed for years and who know what other damage it has done. The reason to backup before is 2 fold, first is to safeguard in the event of unlikely problems. Second is the computer is VERY old and this type of install in disk intensive so it is possible the drive could fail during the install due to it's old age.

You can ignore the numbers for how much RAM is in use. It will use as much as it can get even when there is nothing running but macOS. RAM that isn't being used is wasted RAM. You don't need to "empty" the RAM. It will give up RAM to processes that need it when they are needed.

Download Etrecheck and post the report it generates here.

It's a diagnostic tool that will give us a good idea of what's bogging things down, written by one of the senior members here.

andreamattei1 wrote:

• I'd like to thank everyone for these useful tips.

I've searched everywhere in Library and in the Hard Disk for macpaw o CMM related files, but I haven't been able to find them (even enabling the hidden files feature from Terminal); if you have any clues please let me know.

CMM is an insidious piece of ...

It can be difficult to remove even using the developers instructions.

•

I've really no idea of why and how Apple Security it's disabled, if anyone would be so nice to tell me how to reactivate that feature again it would be really appreciated.

If I had to guess, I'd say it was probably done by CMM.

•

The "TrustedPeersHelper" process seems related to a problem in syncing apple keychain data from newer devices (I have an iPhone on the latest iOS and a 13" 2017 4 thunderbolt MacBook); searching on apple community it seems to be something like programmed obsolescence.

At the moment I can't afford a new iMac, so I'll just try to wipe everything and restart it clear or use an SSD to boot up.

Thanks again everyone.

Honestly, at this point, I think you have the right idea with wiping it and starting over.

andreamattei1 wrote:

I've searched everywhere in Library and in the Hard Disk for macpaw o CMM related files, but I haven't been able to find them (even enabling the hidden files feature from Terminal); if you have any clues please let me know.

You should be able to copy & paste the path I mentioned to those files into the Finder's "Go --> Go to Folder...". So copy the path of one file from my earlier post, then in the Finder, click the "Go" menu and select "Go to Folder...". It will pop-up a small window where you can paste the path followed by clicking "Go".

If the file exists, then it should have a Finder window showing you that file. If the file does not exist, then you will hear a "pop" (aka beep) sound and that window where you pasted the path will remain so you can copy & paste the other path or you click the "Cancel" button.

The other contributors have provided other options for searching for files.

Check the health of the Hard Drive by running DriveDx (free trial period) and posting the complete text report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper on the forum editing toolbar.

Try booting into Safe Mode to see if that makes any difference since it will prevent the automatic launching of third party software during boot & login.

Edit: You can also try running the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. Unfortunately the diagnostics don't detect most failures even when a hardware issue is confirmed through other methods.

What you own is a base model 12 year old 21.5" 2013 iMac that has a spinning HD installed. There are some MAJOR issues with it.

• First the HD is failing!!!!!!!!!!!
• You turned off the Apple Security on the computer so it has ZERO protection.
• The computer has CleanMyMac installed which is considered malware by experienced users on these forums.

IMHO due to it's age I would not spend a penny on it getting it fixed because it is obsolete which means it cannot run current versions of Mac OS and is considered vintage which means parts are largely not available. If it were mine, I would simply replace the computer.

RAM is not what makes an iMac fast. It's the speed of the boot drive. A 2015 is likely to have a rotational HDD or a Fusion Drive (small SSD for the system and larger HDD for files).

Go the the  menu and select About This Mac. It will tell you what year and model it is, how much RAM you have, the screen size and what type and size of drive it has. Give us what it says. Do not include the serial no. of the iMac.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

You can see if you're pushing the envelope with your RAM by watching Activity Monitor's Memory graph while you're operating. If it stays in the green zone you don't have a memory issue.

Well here's the first big problem...

"Major Issues:

Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.

Failing hard drive - This computer has a hard drive that appears to be failing."

Second is you still have CleanMyMac installed...

Third, you have disabled Apple's built in security.

That machine is obsolete. Given the fact that a replacement hard drive, or even an external SSD you could use to boot from would cost more than the machine is worth, it's time to move on.

Buy a new machine and recycle that one.

If you do want to continue troubleshooting, you need to purge the machine of everything related to CleanMyMac.

Actually, a full wipe and rebuild would be preferable.