When our Mac is slow , sometimes it is better to apply a series of remedies rather than wasting time diagnosing possible causes. On machines that are old enough, it can even be a way to keep them fit and ready. Next we will see the best tricks to speed up the operation and make our Mac stop going slow.
What to do with a slow Mac: 7 tricks to speed it up
Use Activity Monitor to find resource hogs
It is well known that certain macOS apps use resources too happily ( ahem Chrome ahem ). When we use several of them at the same time, the operation and speed of our Mac can be affected . The best way to identify these apps is through the Activity Monitor, look for it in the Utilities folder or by pressing the space bar + cmd and typing “monitor”.
This app shows you where system resources are being dedicated, from CPU to RAM or battery. Ideally, click on the column that shows the percentage or amount of consumption to easily see which of them is the cause. If you see any that you don’t need, you can close it so that it stops consuming resources.
Prevent apps from opening when your Mac is turned on
One of the main causes of having a slow Mac is the programs that we launch as soon as we turn it on. If we have several of them and they are resource- hungry , they will make the team start last longer . To find out which programs start up and slow your Mac, we’ll do the following:
- We will go to System Preferences> Users and Groups.
- There we will access the Launch section at the beginning.
- We will see a list of apps that are launched when we turn on the Mac. We will have to eliminate those apps that we really do not need.
To access this section, you may have to enter the administrator password to make changes. The ideal is to have the least possible number of apps at the beginning , since each of them requires resources that we may have scarce.
Close the apps you have open
In macOS we can close the apps with the red button located in the upper left corner. However, most of the time this does not close the app completely . To distinguish the apps that are still open, the dock shows them with a small gray ball below their icon.
These apps continue to consume resources, so it is recommended that you close them if you feel that your Mac is slow. To do this, you must close them completely by pressing the cmd + Q keys . In this way, they will no longer be active.
Make space on your Mac’s disk
Often the memory shortage is one of the main reasons that cause your Mac go slow. To find out what the status of your hard drive or SSD is, go to the apple menu () and click on the About this Mac section. There, different sections about your Mac hardware will be displayed.
Go to Storage and wait for it to fully load, it will show you how much storage memory you use and what you “spend” on. At the bottom right you can manage it, seeing exactly how much each section occupies.
In the recommendations you will see some that will help you optimize the space . Use the ones that make the most sense to you. With these simple gestures, you can get to recover many gigabytes occupied without any sense.
Add RAM or swap your hard drive for an SSD
Some Mac models that still have a hard drive allow you to swap it out and replace it with a solid memory SSD. If you still have such a computer, you are in luck. Because this is one of the cheapest ways to make your Mac increase its speed in an incredible way . A few years ago I did this to a 2010 white MacBook and the result was spectacular.
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Another thing you can do if your Mac allows it is to increase its RAM memory . Overall, these two simple changes can be life changing for a slow Mac . In addition to assuming little money if we compare it with the renewal of the equipment, allowing you to use them for many more years than you thought.
Clear your Mac cache
Clearing your Mac’s cache is not something you should do regularly. We recommend using this only when you urgently need space on your computer . To get rid of it, follow these steps:
- Go to the Finder and hit the Go menu.
- With the menu displayed, press the Option key to display the Library section.
- This folder will open, where you should look for one called Caches. Open it.
- There are all the items saved temporarily to speed up certain processes of your apps.
You can choose to delete them all or just the ones that interest you the most. To find out which ones take up more, select them and press cmd + i . It will show you the information about that element, including its size. Don’t worry about over-erasing, as the cache rebuilds itself based on the needs of your Mac.
Keep your Mac software up to date
As we have seen, there are different reasons why your Mac can be slow. If you apply all these small improvements or maintenance actions, its speed should increase. Although there is another section that you should take a look at: software updates .
In this sense, the main thing would be to make sure that your Mac has the operating system up to date. To do this, open the Mac App Store and go to the Updates section. If you have any pending, organize your time to update the equipment . MacOS updates usually take a long time to download and install.
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Even if you have an older Mac that can’t update to the latest operating system, Apple releases security software enhancements from time to time. So don’t rule out taking a walk through the Mac App Store. And finally, look for updates to the apps you use the most . They often bring fixes for common errors and small improvements that can impact your Mac’s resource usage and speed.
