Related Articles
6 Quick Suggestions to Speed Up Your Apple Computer
Whether you use an iMac, Mac, MacBook Pro, or a MacBook Air, all these devices are likely to slow down with time. Though the age of the device is not always the reason behind slowdowns, the performance is determined by a number of factors.
Most of these reasons are under the user’s control and can be resolved with simple tweaks and workaround procedures.
#1. Disable Resource Hungry Apps
When multiple applications consume system resources on your Mac, it runs slower than usual. Activity Monitor is the place to go hunting down resource-heavy applications and disable them.
Go to Finder, click Applications, tap Utilities, and then click Activity Monitor. Next, go to the CPU tab and double-click the application that is consuming maximum resources. Click on Quit if you wish to kill the running processes, and then confirm your selection.
#2. Manage Login Items
Improve your startup speed by managing and disabling the login items as per your specific preferences. Startup items or login items are the scripts that allow multiple applications on your computer to run automatically without prior permissions.
These applications start automatically each time you boot your computer, and they considerably reduce the battery life and processing power. To disable the login items, click on the Apple menu, navigate to System Preferences, and then Users & Groups. Next, click on the Login Items tab, and then click the apps that you need to remove from the list.
#3. Free Up Space for System Files
Similar to humans, computers are more productive in a cleaner environment. If you want your computer to run faster and smoother, do not use all of the available hard disk space. Make sure that at least 15% of the overall space is free.
To clean up your hard drive, go to the Apple menu, click About This Mac, and select the Storage tab to check how much free space is available on the drive. Next, click Manage and click Optimize in the Optimize Storage section to remove the movies and shows that you have already watched.
Click on Review Files In the Reduce Clutter section to delete the data that is not required. Next, select redundant or outdated files from the list and click on the Delete button. If you wish to delete system storage on Mac that includes macOS, applications, volume data, drivers, and library, try out methods that can help with the problem.
#4. Install macOS Software Update
Regular macOS updates are necessary to ensure that its security features are working appropriately. It will also give your computer a performance boost and result in higher productivity. One of the biggest macOS version updates comes with Safari features that make the browser 50% faster than Chrome.
macOS update removes caches and redundant updates that your computer no longer requires. To update macOS, go to the Apple menu, click System preferences, check for the updates, and click Update Now. Tick the checkbox associated with Automatically keeping my Mac up to date.
If you want to check if your system is running the latest version of the macOS, go to the App Store, click Updates in the Sidebar, and click Update next to the pending updates.
#5. Free Up RAM
Before you take any action to free up storage, navigate to Applications, go to Utilities, click Activity Monitor, and then click Memory. Tap the window named Memory Pressure available towards the bottom. If the bar is mostly green, your RAM is performing excellently. If the bar is red, you might need to add some extra RAM.
To free up RAM from Terminal, open Application, click Utilities, and select Terminal. Type in sudo purge to clean up RAM and clear cache. Next, press Enter and provide your administrator’s account password.
If you want to get a new RAM module, make sure to buy one from Apple. Avoid installing any modules from a third-party manufacturer because doing so might damage your MacBook.
#6. Swap HDD with an SSD
Updating the hardware is often considered an optimal option to improve system performance. To speed up your Mac, you can replace the hardware with newer and faster technology such as the solid-state drive. SSDs consume less battery power and improve battery span considerably.
SSDs are costlier than HDDs, but they are five times faster, which results in efficient read and write operations. Before you upgrade to an SSD, make sure to backup all your data using Apple’s native backup utility called Time Machine.
