How To Speed Up Your Aging Mac

Macs are known for their smooth operations and fluid multitasking capabilities, a prime reason why editing setups and design houses prefer them over computers running Windows. However, they are computers after all and over prolonged usage performance deterioration can take place. After using your Mac Mini or MacBook for several years, you may find it has become slower than usual. That does not mean you need to sell it and bring home a new model. On the contrary, you should try a few useful tricks to speed up your existing Mac.

Speed Up Your Aging Mac

Ways To Speed Up Your Mac Desktop or Notebook

Using a few software tweaks and hardware upgrades, it is possible to infuse new life in your iMac or MacBook Pro. Below listed are a few effective tips to speed up a Mac that has become sluggish.

1. Look At The Login Items

A sluggish Mac may have a lot of apps listed at Login. If there are too many applications listed at startup the laptop or desktop may take longer to boot and run slowly. To check this, you need to go to System Preferences> Users & Groups. Then select ‘Login Items’ tab. Then uncheck those apps not required at startup.

disable-Login-Items-in-Preferences

2. Get Rid of Resource Hogging Apps

It may so happen that your MacBook or iMac runs slower when you run specific web services or software. This can be found by opening Activity Monitor. This UI shows amount of memory and CPU resources hogged by apps that are running. If you find one particular app taking up too many resources replace it with another alternative. This could very well be a web browser or an image editor.

3. Add More RAM

This is a technique that can boost speed of any computer, not only Macs. However, this will depend on which model you have. Some Macbooks and Mac Minis have memory expansion slots. However, in some models the memory is fused into the board and you cannot add extra RAM. If your Mac has empty RAM slot, find information about compatible’s memory modules from Apple support. Apple also offers detailed online guides to aid users who want to add more RAM to their Macs.

Mac RAM

4. Keep Hard Disk In Shape

The hard disk in your MacBook or iMac should not be crammed to the capacity. If the hard disk becomes full with data to its capacity, it can lead to sluggishness. It puts pressure on the OS. Ensure at least 10 percent of the HDD is free at all time, no matter what type of a Mac you use. This is applicable both for Macs with SATA HDD or newer SSDs.

Reclaim Disk Space

5. Use Mac Tune-Up Software

Of course, Apple has designed Mac OS X in a way that it does not get affected by performance slowdown issues like Windows. However, after using Mac for a long time, you may resort to using third party cleanup and system tweaking tools. This will also automate OS tweaking and cleanup, which is handy.

6. Quit Open Apps

In OS X, just closing open app windows do not terminate the apps altogether. On the contrary, you will find such apps running in the background and hogging memory. In other words, apps appearing in the system dock that are lit are hogging memory. Quit the apps to free up memory.

7. Install OS And System Updates

This sounds quite basic but installing OS X updates and patches can help improve the speed and performance of your Mac. Some users tend to overlook this aspect, but you should install such updates if speeding up the Mac is your target.