Why Is My Mac so Slow and How Do I Fix It?
In this week’s tech tips column , we tackle one of the oldest and most common questions – we see it on the Internet, and friends and family pester it over and over again: “My computer is slow and I am not working.” I don’t know how to do it faster again. ”
Okay, to give credit to Virginia , she phrased it more eloquently when she called me on Lifehacker Slack to get my opinion on her molasses-slow Mac. Here’s what she said:
“My 5-year-old Mac is sometimes so slow that it almost can’t work. It’s clear that my system has unnecessary apps and such a mess, but I’m not sure where to start. What am I doing?”
In fact, the other day on Lifehacker Slack we had a similar discussion – “Will they clean up your system and make it faster!” apps that are advertised on the internet deserve installation (sometimes) or are completely fake (often).
As a Windows professional, I am immediately reminded of “registry cleaners” and “memory optimizers” that promise incredible performance gains when you pay a one-time $ 50 fee for life-changing software, which turns out to be small. more than junk science. (That is, if you’re lucky; the “cleanup” they perform can actually mess up your Windows registry and create more problems for you than the slowdown you’ve experienced before.)
I get nervous recommending any app that promises to get your computer back to pristine condition. For me there are only two cleaning tool that you will ever need to be taken into account: one that helps you find and delete old files which you have forgotten (or giant temporary files that are still located in your system for any reason, ), and common sense.
On Mac, Disk Inventory X is a great Windows-based alternative to WinDirStat or WizTree that can help you figure out which folders and files are taking up the most space on your system. In my case, such applications helped me understand that at some point I accidentally made an additional copy of multi-gigabyte files from a folder, which I immediately deleted to free up space on the main SSD.
As far as “common sense” goes, I basically mean taking the time to understand what’s on your system and what’s on your system. This is what I mean.
It might be time to upgrade your Mac hardware (if you can)
I am a hardware specialist, so the first thing I would think about when faced with a slow Mac is to find out if my system is not powerful enough for what I am trying to do with it. I would start with memory first. Generally, 8GB of RAM is a great minimum. You most likely don’t need this anymore unless you have a lot of demanding applications running on your system.
You can check how much you have left on your Mac’s System Information screen. Look for the line “Memory” on the first page, which should be pretty obvious:
While you’re here, take note of your Mac’s Model ID, Processor Name, and Processor Speed. If you have less than 8GB of storage, run a quick Internet search using this information to see if you can upgrade your Mac with more storage at all. (On some Mac models, Apple soldered the components to the motherboard to make them much more difficult to remove and replace.)
There are also many websites that can help, such as OWC’s handy My Updates tool. If you see an update type in the list, for example, memory, then you can update it without any problems.
Plus, if your Mac is old enough to use a hard drive instead of a solid state drive, this upgrade won’t be difficult. You are bound to see a performance boost if you move from spinning platters to small chips, and this is a great upgrade anyone can make to any desktop or laptop (that allows) to improve performance.
It is also possible that there is a temperature issue on your Mac. Make sure all vents on your system are free of debris, dust, and debris. If you want to go crazy, you canopen your system and try to clean out any internal fans (or reapply thermal grease), but this is probably beyond the capabilities of most people.
What about macOS itself?
If your Mac has good hardware but your system is still slow, you have several options. The first and most obvious question is: Are you using the latest version of macOS? Upgrading to macOS Mojave (or Catalina soon) can improve performance .
Then take a look at the apps that launch with macOS by going to System Preferences > Users & Groups and clicking the Login Items tab. There shouldn’t be a ton of apps here; if there are too many of them, shortening the list can help you free up some system resources.
You can also try scanning your Mac’s drive to see if there are any faults that might be causing the slowdown. Open the Disk Utility app and run the First Aid option on your disk, which will check for errors and fix whatever it finds.
While this may not help you the first time you boot the system, you can also run Activity Monitor to see if any processes can bind your cpu (sort by “% CPU”) or memory (sort by “Memory” in memory tab) … If something looks out of place – the cloud sync app might be using a full gigabyte of memory, using 75 percent of your CPU, or doing something else that looks odd – updating or uninstalling / reinstalling that app might fix your problems.
If the problem still doesn’t show up, your best bet is to simply reinstall macOS from scratch. It sounds like a lot of work, but it’s actually not that hard – at least you’ll probably save time and really improve your Mac’s performance instead of trying other obscure troubleshooting steps to try and fix it. problems that you have not yet identified. …
Before you start, make sure you’ve backed up your Mac’s important files through Time Machine , iCloud, or whatever storage service or backup technique you use. Since we’re reinstalling macOS, you don’t have to worry about saving all of your disk’s contents. Only save data that you otherwise would not be able to reinstall, such as documents or media that you have not yet saved to the cloud, etc.
If you are forgetful, remember to take and save screenshots of your Mac’s installed applications so you can easily reinstall them and get your system back to its previous state. The same is true for any supercritical settings that you don’t want to look for later, like your company’s VPN login details (or whatnot).
When you’re ready to reinstall macOS, restart your system and hold down Command + R keys . This will boot your Mac into recovery mode and allow you to install the latest operating system that was previously installed on your Mac. (If you want to update to the latest version of macOS that you haven’t installed yet , hold Option + Command + R instead . )
From there, select the “Reinstall macOS” option and follow all prompts. It’s simple. When you’re done, you’ll be guided through the quick screens of the initial setup for macOS, and then you can proceed to reinstall all your apps and reconnect all your accounts.
Hopefully, after all this, your Mac will feel a little more cheerful. If not, your best bet would be a hardware upgrade or perhaps a completely new Mac.