What replaced “rebuild directory” on the Mac

[George Maciel]

I have an iMac (2017) running Ventura 13.6. When I open a folder with a couple of hundred items in it (text docs, graphic docs, folders, etc.) it takes a very long time to be able to see what is in that folder. I get the spinning clock for minutes before I can see the list view. There was a time that you could rebuild the directory on a Mac but I do not seem to be able to do that anymore. Is there a way to speed up this process. If I am in an app (such as InDesign or Pages, etc.) and I want to place a graphic into that app, I will go to import, navigate to the folder with the graphics to place an item, and then wait a minute or two for the directory list to come up. Same thing if I want to place a text document that is in a folder. There must be software that can fix this issue. Is there something in utilities that will speed up this process? It is the same thing if I just go to open a folder on my iMac that has many items in it. Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

Discussion

[John]

1. try changing to Columns view or turn off calculate file/folder size in List view.

2. your imac is 6 yrs old, intel chip (great room heater) and perhaps you are short on ram and internal drive space. check ram/cpu usage and clear out at least 20% free drive space for the OS to use.

https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/view-folder-sizes-on-your-mac/

[Chris Klemmer]

George,

In addition to John’s spot on suggestions, consider:

1. Do you shut down iMac after each use? Allow it to run a while without sleeping to let Spotlight catch up on its indexing. This may take a few days. You will know it is done when Activity Monitor shows almost no activity.

2. Check User Group> Login Items and remove unnecessary items.

[Elliott Cobin]

Check Activity Monitor to see what applications are using the most ram and close them (close Activity Monitor as well). I have a much newer Mac and need to do this when using a certain application which uses a lot of ram.

[John Patrick]

You can also try rebuilding the spotlight index; directions here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/102321

support.apple.com

Rebuild the Spotlight index on your Mac - Apple Support

If you get unexpected results when searching your Mac, rebuilding the Spotlight index might help.

[Jerome King]

I also have a 2017 iMac It suffered for years with slow response. (I’d go brew a cup of tea while waiting for applications to start.

My iMac has a rotating hard drive memory That is the reason

I bought an external SSD drive for the Start up disc and now it is faster than a cat on a hot roof

Jerry

• This reply was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by  Jerome King.

[Robert Hale]

The slow access is likely primarily related to the relatively new APFS file system. It is known to create substantial delays in accessing and reading files, especially for files which may have been edited numerous times. This is related to the access and read performance of your spinning disk hard drive, which is only 5,400 RPM.

One suggested solution is to instead use an external SSD, connected via Thunderbolt, or USB 3.1. Several specific steps are involved in order to do that, however.

Thanks everyone for your other suggestions, though.

Best, Bob.