Optimize Your Mac

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It is not uncommon for computer systems to slow down over time. The cause of diminished speed can be malicious, such as viruses and spyware on the hard drive. Slow speed can also result from application overload and out of date software updates. Mac computers have a reputation for being less prone to complications than other systems, but even Macs can become slow. Even if your Mac hasn't slowed down enough to affect the speed, optimizing your system can improve performance.

Steps

  1. Close out your running applications.
    • View your dock, which might be located at the bottom, left or right side of your screen.
    • Look for icons with light blue circles beneath them. This indicates a running application.
    • Click and hold the icon until three options appear. Choose to quit the application.
  2. Restart your Mac.
    • Hit the Apple menu and then Restart. This simple step can solve basic slowness issues.
  3. Clear out your startup items.
    • Go to the Apple menu. Select System Preferences then Accounts and then Login Items to view items that begin automatically when you start up your system. Often these applications aren't even being used; they just increase the Mac boot time take up memory.
    • Select the item you wish to remove from startup and click the minus sign at the top.
    • Uninstall the unused application. Drag the application to trash then manually remove its related files, or use uninstall tools like CleanGenius to remove it.
  4. Turn off options you don't use.
    • Re-open system preferences by going to the Apple Menu then System Preferences.
    • Select the icons of various features such as Universal Access and Bluetooth. While these can be useful, if you aren't employing them they might be slowing down your system.
    • Uncheck the box after opening a feature's options
  5. Keep your Mac running cool.
    • Store and use your computer in a cool, dry environment. To be more specific, try to keep the environment temperature for Mac at {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}.
    • Utilize a feature called Fan Control. This utility automatically adjusts your fan speed according to the temperature of your system.
  6. Pare down your widgets.
    • Open your dashboard in your dock.
    • Evaluate your widgets, which are various tools that report the weather, movie times, and calculate numbers, among other things. Delete the widgets you don't regularly use. Even when you don't have the dashboard open, these widgets are running and taking up space.
  7. Check the activity monitor.
    • Go to the Utilities folder and find the activity monitor. This tool details your CPU usage, your virtual memory usage, and your RAM requirements. The activity monitor will identify if a program is using up a large amount of RAM.
  8. Remove items from your hard drive.
    • Go through your documents, photos and music and remove anything you don't need. For example, pictures you have uploaded from your camera that are near-duplicates or mistakes. Photos can take up many gigabytes of space on your hard drive, slowing down your system considerably.
    • Empty your trash if you haven't recently.
  9. Run a maintenance check.
    • Download a maintenance application and run in on your Mac. These applications clear out your cache and check for other performance issues.

Video

Tips

  • Perform a few of these optimization tips regularly to keep your Mac running smoothly between hard cleans.

Warnings

  • Do not remove any items or system components from your computer whose function you aren't sure of. You do not want to delete important features.

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Sources and Citations

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