Need help! Unknown source of interference

[Janet]

Something is causing my MacBook (mid 2009, Yosemite) to take 15 minutes to open in the morning and links to take many minutes to connect.

For months I've been to trying to find the problem, thought it was Mail and changed to PostBox which I like but still have the problem. Microsoft has tried to help, my service provider has tried to help but nothing changes.

The speed test is good: 15.97 download, and I have cleaned out any apps I don't recognize.

Still, just auto-opening email (either Mail or Postbox) and a browser (Chrome) takes 15 minutes, a further 5 minutes to finish bringing in the emails, and then opening a link from an email sends that damned little ball spinning again, and I wait.

Something must be consuming space that I can't find. The problem began last summer and gradually became worse. No one has had an answer. I'm reluctant to take the computer to the shop as I know it could cost as much as a new/used one. As well, I've never had such a problem with a Mac in 25 years as to take it to the shop.

Appreciate any help you experts have.

Thanks

 

[honestone]

First, have you been making any backups to an external device?

Secondly, do you happen to have a more robust Disk Maintenance/Repair program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro?

Third, how much free space is on your internal drive?

Finally, are you using the latest (and last) version of Yosemite, OS 10.10.5?

Assuming you do not have a more robust Disk Maintenance/Repair program like Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro, there should be an invisible Recovery Partition on your internal drive. This link discusses that partition in more detail, including how to boot to it:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

From there, you can run Disk Utility to 1) Verify and Repair the drive at the Volume, ie, top level, 2) Verify and Repair the drive at the Partition, ie, second level, and 3) Verify and Repair permissions. Please note that if you have not been making backups, this could cause "issues", assuming there are problems with the drive.