Sooner or later, your Mac will probably start acting sluggish, consistent with the reverse Moore’s law for aging computers. However, before you think of buying a new Macbook, there’s a lot you can do to salvage the current slow poke.
Here are the best 10 tips for speeding up your Macbook.
Use the Activity Monitor to Observe Resource Draining Apps
Some applications that run in the background can drain your system and battery life even when you are not using them. This can significantly reduce your battery life, consume bandwidth and slow down your Mac. The good news is that you can identify and kill the offending apps quite easily in Mac.
The MacOS comes with a built-in utility called Activity monitor which helps users track the allocation of system’s resources. The Activity Monitor shows individual tasks of the CPU, Disc, Energy, Network, and Memory usage.
How to Use the Activity Monitor to Speed up your Mac
- To find the Utility monitor go to: Applications folder > Utilities folder
- Double-click on the Activity Monitor. Here you’ll see five tabs with a list of entries.
- In the CPU tab, if you find an app that’s using too much CPU power, click on it and click the X button in the toolbar.
- Click Quit. If it doesn’t work, click Force Quit. This will remove the laggard.
Tip: Here are more solutions to improve your Macbook’s battery’s life.
Upgrade your MacOS
Mac Updates are created to optimize resource usage and trim bloat in order to speed up your Mac. Updating MacOS to the latest version enables your Mac to run more smoothly.
How to Update:
- Go to the Apple Menu > system Preferences
- About this Mac > Software Update
- Click Update Now (if there’s a new version).
You can also check the Automatically keep my Mac up to date box to upgrade to new versions automatically.
Upgrade your Hardware
A slowdown may be due to a lack of sufficient storage space or RAM. At a minimum, you should always have around 5 gigs of disk space available for Mac OS to run smoothly.
Besides purging unwanted files, move infrequently accessed files such as photos and videos to iCloud to further free up space.
Tip: Click here to see how much RAM your Macbook can handle.
Uninstall Unused Apps
Uninstalling unused app is another quick win to free up your harddrive on Mac, which can have a direct impact on speed.
To Uninstall Apps you no longer needed:
- Open Finder, go to Applications> EtreCheck
- Choose Date Last Opened
- Trash apps you’ve not opened in months.
Remove Browser Extensions
Your browser could be dragging down your entire Mac performance due to an unchecked number of plugins and extensions you’ve installed. These “mini” programs run in the background even if you aren’t actively using them, draining your system resources.
How to remove Browser Extensions from all Major Browsers
In Chrome: Click the 3-dot Icon at the top right and Select More Tools > Extensions
In Firefox: Click the hamburger icon at the top right then choose Add-ons
In Safari: Go to the top Menu and click on Safari Extensions.
Close Browser Tabs
Opening too many tabs on your browser can also slow down the performance of your Mac. The more tabs you have open, the harder your Mac works since each tab is a separate process. The tabs also consume more memory.
How to Identify and Close Tabs on Chrome
- On the Chrome menu bar, select Window > Task Manager
- Identify tabs consuming much resources
- Close the tabs you don’t need
- Click End process as shown below:
Turn off Visual Effects
The MacOS has an inbuilt eye candy that may slow down the performance of your Mac. You can easily turn off the animations and Visual effects to speed up your Mac.
Here is How to Free Your Mac from Motion Effects:
- Click the Apple Menu > System Preferences
- Select Accessibility
- Click on Displays and check Reduce Motion.
Regularly Reset the SMC and PRAM
The SMC ( System Management Controller) controls basic functions like Power management, Wifi, and hardware connections. The PRAM (Parameter Random Access Memory) manages crucial settings like Keyboard lighting, volume and Performance information.
Resetting the SMC and PRAM can resolve a couple of issues such as slow booting, overheating and bluetooth connection problems.
TO Reset SMC for Macs with Non-Removable Batteries:
- Turn off the MacBook.
- Hold down SHIFT+CONTROL+OPTION keys and press the Power Button
- Hold all the Keys down for 10 seconds then release them and power on normally.
To Reset SMC for Maacs with Removable Battery:
- Turn off the Mac
- Unplug the Power cord
- Wait for 20 seconds then Plug it back in.
To Reset the PRAM:
- Shut down the Mac
- Press power button and Hold down COMMAND+OPTION +P
- Keep pressing until it reboots and then release the keys.
Manage Startup Items
When you boot up your Mac, it automatically launches many programs and processes, some of which aren’t necessary. You can manage this by:
- Go to System Preferences > Users and Groups
- Click on your username
- Click on Login Items and select programs you don’t need immediately when you start up your Mac.
Reduce Desktop Icons
Lastly, you can try to speed up your Mac by putting your icons in order using the Desktop Stacks feature. Deleting some unwanted icons can also help for older MacOS versions. Be sure to empty the recycle bin. After cleaning up the desktop, restart the Mac.
Always remember that, each icon on the desktop takes up space in the RAM. The fewer the icons, the faster the Mac.