Sep 07, 2019 How to Speed Up a Mac. This wikiHow shows you several ways to speed up your Mac. A slow Mac can be caused by several issues, but turning off visual effects, closing resource-heavy programs, updating your OS, and managing your startup. Quit all open apps. Don't just close the windows, but right-click on the app icon in the dock and select 'Quit.' It's a good idea to learn five tips to help you speed up your Mac, and also.
If you use Apple's Mail app on your Mac, you've probably had times when the application slows down. Messages in mailboxes are slow to appear; searches take longer than usual to perform. This can happen when Mail's mailboxes (or folders, if you prefer) accumulate thousands of messages — which is all the more likely if you're among the majority of the human population and you don't discard old email.
The best thing you can do is be ruthless with old email. Once you're finished with a message, move it to the trash and then empty the trash every so often. Try to think about it this way. We all receive tons of junk mail in our physical mailboxes — advertising circulars from the local supermarket, catalogs, credit card applications. If you don't save any of that stuff, why would you hold on to old email, particularly when it takes less effort to press the delete key than it does to carry paper-based mail to the recycle bin?
So, settings, general, background app refresh - turn that on for this important apps. Then launch the app and just press the home button to get back to the home screen. Do not double tap the home button and swipe up to close those apps - leave them open in the background. Cut down on apps that launch automatically. When you start up your MacBook Pro and log in, a number of apps will typically launch automatically. If a bunch of apps you don't need all launch at this time, it will slow your system down. Oct 22, 2012 This will make the app or action of choice launch but not be visible on your screen at start up. It’ll make the application available to you but save any visual clutter that may occur. This is a great way to clean up and speed up your start up, as some installed apps make a special effort to get your attention by defaulting to launch at login.
Still, some of us accumulate email that is valuable and merits keeping. That's fine, too, but over time it still may slow the Mail app down.
Lucky for all of us, there's a solution to the slowdown.
Scripting to the Rescue
There's a built-in tool on your Mac called vacuum that you can use to clean up the database that stores all of your emails. The vacuum command copies the contents of your mail database to a temporary file and rebuilds it so that it uses less space on your disk. The vacuum command eliminates gaps, defragments the data, and cleans up the database file structure.
Normally, the vacuum command is accessible only through the Mac's command-line interface using an app such as Terminal. But thanks to the wonder of Automator, an app that ships with your Mac, you can create a simple three-step script that will run the vacuum tool. And you don't have to know how to write a script, use the command line, or even understand how the vacuum tool works.
Here's how to do it.
First Things First
Apple has been improving the security of macOS every year. One of Apple's more recent security features is called Full Disk Access, introduced with macOS 10.14 Mojave. Normally applications do not have the ability to access all the files on your Mac, including data from other apps. Enabling Full Disk access for an application grants that app the ability to fiddle with data from other apps.
To make this Automator script work properly with macOS Mojave or macOS Catalina, you'll need to enable Full Disk Access for Automator. Here's how:
Meet Otto
Open the Automator app which is located in your Mac's Applications folder. Its icon looks like a robot refugee from Earth, circa 2805.
To run your new workflow, just open it with Automator and click the Run button in the upper right corner of the script's window. If Mail is running, it will quit, the script will run, and Mail will re-open with a rebuilt database behind the scenes which should lead to improved performance.
Hoover it Up!
Has this easy-to-make Automator action helped with your Mail slowdowns? Let us know in the comments below.
macOS CatalinaMain
We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.
Remember the feeling of a brand new Mac? A Mac without rainbow wheels. A Mac that didn’t cause headaches or frustration. Below we’ll show you 15 ways you can shake off the dust from your system. All it takes it to disable a few things here and there.
Here’s How to Speed Up Your Mac
These simple steps provided below won't take much time, but will greatly help to improve your Mac's performance. If you do these activities regularly, you won't have to worry about the need to speed up your Mac again.
1. Find resource-hungry processes
Some apps are more power-hungry than others and can slow your Mac to a crawl. To see which apps are eating up your system resources, use Activity Monitor. You can open it from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder, or use Spotlight to find it.
Activity Monitor details five different resources: CPU, Memory, Energy, Disk, and Network usage. If your Mac is running slowly, pay special attention to the CPU section. It shows how processes affect the CPU (processor) activity. Click a column name, such as % CPU, to list all programs by the amount of CPU they’re using.
How to use activity monitor to speed up Mac
If you see that some app is using a lot of CPU power, you can close it from here by choosing the app with the mouse and clicking the X in the left-hand corner of the Activity Monitor.
2. Manage your startup items
It goes without saying that a clean startup helps speed up slow Mac. When your Mac launches faster, it takes less time to do anything. No waiting for Safari, Chrome or Firefox to launch — they open instantly. How do you get such speed? Well, when your Mac boots up, it runs a lot of unnecessary apps. But it’s quite easy to take control of it. Go to your System Preferences > Users & Groups and then click on your username. Now click on Login Items and select a program you don’t immediately need when your Mac starts up, and click the “-” button below.
3. Turn off visual effects
A great tip to help you when you wonder how to speed up your Mac is to turn off visual effects. Sure, they look pretty, but who cares if your Mac is running slowly? Turning off some of the features can greatly speed up iMac or MacBook.
Here’s how to speed up a Mac by turning off some visual effects:
4. Delete browser add-ons
All articles on how to speed up Mac mention browsers. It's 2020 and today's browsers got simply too complicated. Chrome and other browsers often get overloaded with various add-ons and extensions we install on top of them. These tools do a useful job like checking our grammar but we pay for that with reduced browser speed. You can battle that by reducing the number of open tabs (a good practice in and off itself) and by removing any browser extensions you don't need.
Here is how to delete extra browser extensions in all 3 main browsers: 5. Reindex Spotlight
If you recently updated your OS, you would be aware of the slowness that occurs when Spotlight is indexing. This only takes a few hours and then your Mac will be fine. But sometimes the indexing gets stuck, and you need to speed up a Mac. To solve this problem, you need to reindex Spotlight by going to System Preferences > Spotlight and clicking on the “Privacy” tab.
Mac Speed Up
Now drag your hard drive from Finder into the Privacy List. Once added, remove it by clicking the “-” sign. The indexing will start again, but hopefully, after a few hours, it will finish properly and boost your Mac speed.
6. Reduce Desktop clutter
Remember, every desktop icon takes up RAM space. Fewer icons — the faster your Mac gets. When your Desktop is clean, restart your computer. And the 'Desktop Stacks' feature lets you put those icons in order. If you're running macOS High Sierra or older macOS version, don't worry. The mere deletion of desktop items will make your MacBook faster.
7. Empty the caches
Cache files are temporary data used to speed up the processes. For example, a web browser will cache web pages to download a website faster when you revisit it. Sounds great, right? Actually, it is, but there is always “but.” Over time, these cache files take much storage on your Mac, and instead of speeding things up, they slow your computer down.
So how to speed up MacBook by emptying the caches? There are two ways: you can clean them up manually (step-by-step) or you can remove them in a second with a cleaning utility CleanMyMac X.
If you want to clear cache automatically, do the following:
That’s it!
However, if you decide to clean cache files manually, check out his guide on “How to Clear Cache on a Mac.”
8. Uninstall unused apps
Another proven way to speed up MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or iMac is to uninstall the application you don’t need anymore. So how to remove unwanted apps on your Mac? You may be surprised to find out that simply dragging them to a Trash bin is not enough. It leaves gigabytes of junk behind. Dragging documents and movies to Trash works fine but apps should be uninstalled completely. Check out a step-by-step guide on “How to Uninstall Apps on a Mac.” It describes the manual way and the easy way.
There are also unseen apps, called launch agents that may slow your Mac down. For example, your internet download speeds suddenly plummeted. https://coastalyola.weebly.com/mac-edit-videos.html. How to speed up downloads on Mac? Delete background agents that cannibalize your internet speeds.
9. Clean up Mac’s hard driveSpeed Up Mac Mini
If you want the most bang for your buck, cleaning your hard drive is by far the best and easiest way to speed up MacBook or iMac. Go through your hard drive and clean out everything that is slowing it down. But what is slowing down my Mac? What to look for? Caches, logs, apps, widgets, hidden trash, large and old files.
Extra step: Delete large unused files
Think of a car that has a heavy load in the trunk. For all its engine power, it cannot really go fast. The same happens on your Mac only your disk is stuffed with heavy files.
1.Go to Apple menu > About this Mac >Storage. 2.Click on “Manage…”
In the menu that appears, click on Documents. These should be your largest space-wasters. In our case, these are movie files. Review these and move them away onto an external drive.
Of course, you can clean up your Mac manually. But finding and removing all these things takes time. And you have to know where to look. The good news is that there is an easy solution to the problem. CleanMyMac X, by MacPaw has everything you need to finish the 3-hour task of hard drive cleanup in under 5 minutes. Even more, it will clean up the junk you didn’t even know about and speed up Mac.
10. Update your Mac (OS and hardware)
Typically, Macs take care of themselves. Having the latest software from Apple makes speeding up your Mac simple. To check your version of the operating system, click the Apple icon in the top left corner of your screen and then About This Mac. Make sure you have the latest macOS/OS X installed (or the latest you can install since not all Macs upgrade to macOS Catalina).
As for the hardware upgrade, as you’ve probably guessed, it is costly. But if your OS is the latest possible version and you’ve cleaned up the hard drive, and you still have troubles with speed, this could be your solution. Keep in mind that upgrading some hardware is not possible for certain Macs.
Upgrading to the latest OS and upgrading your hardware will typically solve a bunch of slowness issues.
11. Create a new user profile on your Mac
If you want to go even further than updating the macOS — simply create a new user profile on your Mac. Some settings in your current user profile may have been compromised or got cluttered with outdated system logs. You can scrap all these and start your profile afresh.
Next up, you will have to import your crucial user data to your new account. Luckily, macOS has a special Shared Folder just for this purpose. It can be found by clicking Finder > Go > Computer > Macintosh HD > Users. Drop your documents to this folder and then log in to your new account. Well done! You’re starting a new life!
12. Free up RAM using Terminal
If you made it to this tip, you probably have enough skill to start using Mac's Terminal app. It's like using a magic wand — there are dozens of helpful combinations that you can use to speed up mac OS. One of them is used to free up RAM instantly.
You can apply this trick when your system is running out of available memory. In other words, when a particular app freezes up and desperately needs some fresh memory.
If you're not comfortable with using Terminal, there is a shortcut way to free up RAM that requires no hacking skills.
You can download the app I've mentioned above, CleanMyMac X, preferably, the 2019 version.
Extra tip: Add more RAM
How to speed up my Mac? How to get it run faster? In fact, upgrading RAM is usually a great solution for improving your Mac’s performance. But first, check how much RAM you physically have on your Mac.
Zoom us mac app. The normal amount in 2019 is anything above 8 GB of RAM. An extra 8 GB RAM card will cost you around $30.
The more RAM your Mac has at its disposal, the more windows or tabs you can have open without slowing the system down. With more RAM, the operating system isn’t making calls to virtual memory which uses the hard drive and slows down the system considerably. Here’s a comprehensive guide on “How to Upgrade Your Mac’s RAM.”
Mac Speed Up App Launch App
One more hardware solution to speed up your MacBook is to reapply MacBook’s thermal paste which has probably worn off over time. The tell-tale sign for this is your Mac overheating too often. The thermal paste transfers heat away from your Mac’s processor thus making it more efficient.
13. Reset SMC & PRAM
Sometimes your Mac will act strange for no apparent reason — it sleeps or shuts down unexpectedly, the battery doesn’t charge properly, the keyboard backlight behaves incorrectly, and your Mac performs slowly. If these issues are not solved by restarting your computer, you’ll need to reset SMC (system management controller) and PRAM (parameter RAM).
How to speed up MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and MacBook
Resetting the SMC
First of all, you need to determine whether your Mac’s battery is removable. That’s because the process of resetting the SMC for computers that have a non-removable battery is quite different.
If the battery is non-removable:
Speed Up Mac Boot Time
If the battery is removable:
How to speed up iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro
Resetting the PRAM
Resetting SMC and PRAM may seem to be difficult, but it can really help with Mac speedup.
14. Replace your HDD with SSD
So you're asking yourself how to speed up my Mac — but have you tried hardware solutions? You can breathe new life into your Mac by replacing its traditional hard drive with a solid-state one. Adding an SSD will make your computer boot faster, copy files in the blink of an eye and make the system really fast when multitasking.
A word of caution: it’s recommended that you consult a professional before attempting any hardware upgrades yourself because the process is quite challenging. And don’t forget to make a complete backup of your data before replacing your HDD with SSD, so that you’ll be able to restore all important files if something goes wrong.
By today's standards, a good SSD will have 240-256 GB of capacity. It is recommended to clean install the macOS on the new drive. When asked about the formatting system, choose the APFS+ file system which works much faster. 15. Use CleanMyMac X
If you don’t feel like spending the next several hours trying to get your Mac in shape manually, there is a great solution. Download CleanMyMac X and let it do the job for you. This powerful utility is the best way to speed up old Mac. It has a dedicated feature, called Speed that battles the slow macOS. It does some of the following:
Mac Speed Up App Launch Video
Some users reported that the Speed feature is pretty impressive, especially on older Mac models.
Now, speed up your Mac, take a deep breath, do a Mac speed test and come to thank us.
Here is a short video recap of what we've discussed above.
Speed Up Mac ProThese might also interest you:Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
December 2020
Categories |