If you're wondering why your Mac is so slow, or if you're receiving the dreaded spinning beach ball of doom' a lot, you've come to the right place. Here are some suggestions for making your Mac operate quicker and perform better.
Close any apps that aren't in use.
It may seem self-evident, but the easiest place to start is by shutting down any programs that are running in the background but aren't being used. Glancing at the Dock at the bottom of the screen is a handy method to see which programs are running. A dot will appear beneath running programs (if you don't see this dot, visit System Preferences and click Dock, then check the box next to ‘Show indicator lights for open applications.')
If everything has gone wrong and you're staring at a spinning beach ball, you can utilize the Apple menu to force the program to close. To do so, navigate to the upper left corner of your screen and click the Apple logo, then Force Quit. You'll get a list of all open programs here; simply highlight the one that's bothering you and press the Force Quit button.
Look for any memory-robbing apps.
Open the Activity Monitor in the Utility folder to see which apps are consuming system resources. (Alternatively, press the Command-space bar and start typing ‘activity, then press Enter to open it.) Before you do anything, go to the menu bar at the top of the screen and select View > Windowed Processes to see all the processes running on your Mac (some of which you can't or shouldn't close).
Return to Activity Monitor and click the CPU button in the “percent CPU” column to get a list of all apps and how much CPU they are using. You can also use this to check how much memory, disk space, and network bandwidth each process consumes.
If you see that one program, in particular, is hogging a lot of processing power, you can close it from here by choosing it with the mouse and clicking the x in the Activity Monitor's menu bar.
If you've ever used a computer, you're probably aware of the importance of ‘defragging' it regularly. Defragging a Mac, on the other hand, is unnecessary since macOS includes built-in safeguards that prevent files from fragmenting in the first place. However, having a little free space on your hard drive can help your Mac operate better.
The Mac must be able to write and read swap files and having enough free space helps. At least 10 percent of your disk drive should be free! If you can, replacing your hard disk with a larger capacity model is one solution, but it will still fill up eventually.
You'll have to erase some files if your hard drive doesn't have at least ten percent free RAM. There are a lot of large files and directories on your hard drive. Email files and backups, old versions of software you no longer use, and images are all examples. If you often upload images and download music to your Mac, you may rapidly run out of space.
Open the Apple menu by clicking on the Apple logo in the top left corner of your screen, then click on About This Mac to see how much space you have available. Choose Storage from the tabs to see how much of your storage is being used and what is using up that space. Clicking on ‘Manage' in recent versions of macOS brings up options for optimizing your storage or storing images and movies in iCloud rather than on your Mac.
Photos
If you like capturing photos and movies with your iPhone, you might be shocked at how much space these files take up on your Mac. Especially if you're shooting in Apple's new ProRAW format.
You might imagine that by paying for iCloud Photo storage, you'll be able to delete images from your Mac and have them stored in the cloud, but this isn't the case. Remove the photos from your Mac, and they will be removed from all of your devices!
If you already have iCloud Images, this could signify that photos stored in iCloud are using up a lot of space on your Mac. For example, if you shoot photos on your iPhone, you might want to disable iCloud Photos sync on your Mac.
You could back up your images on the cloud using another service like DropBox or Google Drive, or you may avoid using any cloud service at all. Another option is to create a second storage device and transfer the images and videos currently on your Mac to it.
Music
Your Music collection could be another large folder, especially if you have movies and TV series in addition to music. You can clear up disk space by transferring your music files to an external device, just like you can with photos. (However, you'll need to relink your music library in the preferences/advanced tab.)
Alternatively, for £21.99 a year, you may subscribe to iTunes Match. It uploads all of your music to the cloud, allowing you to erase it from your Mac and access it from any device. There are also music streaming services like Spotify, which allow you to listen to ‘The Best of Gregorian Chant Music' without having to physically store any music. Regardless of what else you listen to, we presume everyone is listening to ‘The Best of Gregorian Chant Music.'
No? Anyway, er...
Put out the trash
If you haven't done so in a while, free up space on your Mac by emptying the trash bin. Simply right-click the symbol and select ‘Empty bin' from the menu.
You should also delete any items from the Downloads folder that you are unlikely to use. To go to it, press the Command-space bar and type in ‘downloads.' You can observe how many files accumulate in this folder, and you should delete everything you don't need.
Ascertain that your software is up to date.
Software updates for macOS and all programs installed on your Mac should be performed regularly. When it comes to the OS, it will usually notify you with an alert that one is required. For example, if you're running Mojave, Catalina, or Big Sur, go to Software Update and wait for your Mac to check for updates. Install it if one is available. If you're using an older version of macOS, go to the Menu bar and select Software Update from the Apple menu.
However, you must go to the App Store and click on Updates to see if your apps need to be updated.
Examine for Malware
Viruses used to be thought of as a problem that only affected computers.
There was a period when the majority of us had never heard of the Covid-19 virus (daydreams out of the window longingly).
Malware for Macs has rapidly increased in recent years, and today's Macs are infected with adware, scareware, and other potentially undesirable apps. As a result, scanning your Mac for malware, adware, spyware, and other risks is a good idea before they invade your laptop and ruin your day.
Other companies sell software that will be more than adequate for most people's needs; perhaps we might write a blog post about the benefits and drawbacks of these at a later date. For the time being, we've used it and found it to be adequate for most people's needs.
More RAM should be installed.
First and foremost, this isn't about a male sheep!
RAM stands for Random Access Memory.
However, before you spend money on additional RAM, you should try to find out how big of a difference it will make.
To do so, open Activity Monitor (under Applications / Utilities), select the Memory tab and monitor the memory pressure gauge at the bottom of the window. If it's mostly green, upgrading is unlikely to make a significant difference. It's a good idea to buy extra RAM if it turns red regularly. If you need more, we have plenty of options available, and our customer care staff can assist you with your specific need.
The largest stumbling block will be whether or not you can expand the RAM in your Mac. While adding extra RAM to an iMac is simple, many recent Macs cannot be upgraded at all.
Restart your Mac
There used to be a case for leaving a computer on for as long as possible to save the wear and tear of restarting the hard disk, but the restart argument is based on more than that.
The biggest benefit of sleeping in your Mac is that you can easily resume where you left off. Starting up your Mac again in the days of slow hard drives might have been something you did while making a cup of tea or even taking a shower, but modern Macs are far faster to start up.
If you leave your Mac on all night, caches won't be flushed, and applications that need a lot of RAM won't let it go. The caches are cleared and applications are shut down when you restart your Mac. The result is a refreshed Mac that should run better, so doing a full restart at least once a week is definitely a good idea.
If everything else fails,
macOS can be reinstalled.
Although this is not a simple task, if you purchased your Mac from us, our customer care team will be pleased to walk you through it.
You'll need to delete your entire boot disk, so be prepared. However, it will delete all of the files that have accumulated in the system and user libraries over time, which may be slowing down the Mac.
Before you begin, make a thorough backup of your hard drive so you can copy documents, photographs, music, and anything else you need back once the new OS is installed.
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