How to deal with the Finder showing the Beach Ball of Death

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If you’re a Mac user for any length of time, then you know the icon that we call “The Beach Ball of Death.” The icon comes up when your Mac is doing several processes at once, and can’t handle anymore requests at that time.

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The other day, I was having problems with going into the Finder and the ball always coming up and hanging the entire computer. After searching Google I came across this post from the Apple Discussion Forums about this problem.

I’ll re-copy it for you here for your convenience.

As always, make sure you have a good backup of your files before attempting the below.

Shutdown the computer and disconnect all third-party peripherals.
Wait 30 seconds before you restart the computer.
Resetting your Mac’s PRAM and NVRAM
Reset the System Management Controller (SMC)
Reset your Startup Disk and Sound preferences, if needed, after resetting the PRAM.
Test in safe mode to see if the problem persists, then restart normally. See How to use safe mode on your Mac.
Repair the disk by booting from the Recovery HD. Immediately after the chime hold down the Command and R keys until the Utility Menu appears. Choose Disk Utility and click on the Continue button. Select the indented (usually, Macintosh HD) volume entry from the side list. Click on the First Aid button in the toolbar. Wait for the Done button to appear. Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu. Restart the computer from the Apple Menu.
Create a New User Account Open Users & Groups preferences. Click on the lock icon and enter your Admin password when prompted. On the left under Current User click on the Add [+] button under Login Options. Setup a new Admin user account. Upon completion log out of your current account then log into the new account. If your problems cease, then consider switching to the new account and transferring your files to it – Transferring files from one User Account to another.
Reinstall a Combo Updater macOS Catalina 10.15.6 Combo Update, macOS Mojave 10.14.6 Combo Update, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Combo Update, macOOS 10.12.6 Combo Update, OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 Combo Update.
Reinstall OS X by booting from the Recovery HD using the Command and R keys. When the Utility Menu appears select Install OS X then click on the Continue button.
Erase and Install OS X Restart the computer. Immediately after the chime hold down the Command and R keys until the Apple logo appears. When the Utility Menu appears:

Select Disk Utility from the Utility Menu and click on the Continue button.
When Disk Utility loads select the drive (out-dented entry) from the Device list.
Click on the Erase button in Disk Utility’s toolbar. A panel will drop down.
Set the Format type to APFS (for SSDs only) or Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)
Click on the Apply button, then wait for the Done button to activate and click on it.
Quit Disk Utility and return to the Utility Menu.
Select Install OS X and click on the Continue button.