Despite the fact that the Mac operating system is quite stable and responsive, over time you may find your Mac running slow. There may be various reasons for a decline in Mac’s performance. In this article, we will help you to analyze why your Mac is running slow and explain how to improve Mac performance. Show
Important notes about Mac’s performance and the methodology used to write this article
Before we start, watch a short video “Tips to speed up a slow Mac” Why is my Mac running so slowThe first step to diagnosing a system slowdown is to consider the most common reasons that may cause this. Here are the top reasons of why Mac computer is running slow:
My Mac is running very slow. Can I fix it?
If the reasons for Mac’s system slowdown aren’t addressed, its speed will decrease even more. This may lead to involuntary reboots of the Mac and the loss of user data. How to fix a slow MacDetect and close memory-consuming appsIf your Mac is running slowly, the problem can be with a particular application. Every application utilizes system resources, so the more apps you have running, the slower your Mac. Moreover, a specific app can require too much CPU and memory. Follow these steps to identify memory-consuming apps that are causing a system slowdown:
Read also: “Top 5 memory consuming apps on a Mac” Clear RAM when Mac apps open slowlyIf you notice that your Mac is slowing down even when you launch a few apps, then your system needs more free RAM to perform the tasks. Clearing inactive RAM will help to improve your Mac’s performance. The easiest way to free up RAM is to restart your Mac. Many users do not finish work on their Mac by the end of the day, but just put it into Sleep Mode. In this case, huge temporary files are created. Restarting a Mac allows your system to finish all system processes correctly, flush RAM, and clear temporary files. Also, you should shut down your Mac if you do not plan to use it for several days. However, restarting Mac to free up RAM is certainly not convenient, since it interrupts your work. Another option to clear RAM is using the Terminal command line.
Note, that with MacCleaner Pro you can free up RAM and speed up your Mac with just a few clicks.
MacCleaner Pro also comes with an additional helping tool Memory Cleaner, which can automatically clean up RAM each time your system is out of RAM. Add RAM to make a Mac run fasterIf you need to regularly work with heavy programs on your Mac, you had better increase your RAM; but first, check if it is possible to add more RAM to your computer:
Read also: “How to clear RAM on Mac.“ Update the macOS system and all used applications. As a rule, developers create and optimize their applications for the latest version of macOS. If your Mac starts to run very slowly when you launch a specific application, it’s likely the app is not compatible with your system. Check the system requirements for the app, minimum processor speed, minimum RAM, recommended GPU card and so on. Update your apps to make them compatible with your new macOS. Follow the steps below to check for macOS updates:
To update apps downloaded from the App Store, do the following:
Disable startup programs that slow down a Mac computerHaving your favorite programs launch on startup is convenient. However, the more the programs running automatically at login, the slower your Mac startup. You should disable all login items to make your Mac run faster.
Note, that despite login items, some apps may have extensions – daemons and launch agents, that are hidden or work in the background and run on user login or system startup. You can’t disable them using the System Preferences. In this case, you can use a special tool from the MacCleaner Pro bundle – App Cleaner & Uninstaller. This app allows you to easily stop all the programs from launching on startup and even remove app extensions.
Check a slow Mac for malware appsIt may happen that your Mac is working slowly because it is being affected by malicious software. Your Mac can receive malware when you download email attachments from unfamiliar senders or apps from untrusted websites. To protect your Mac from malware, first check your security settings:
Read also: “How to fix a Mac that won’t turn on.” Check hardware when Mac is slowAnother possible reason for a Mac slowdown is damage to or malfunction of the system drive. Use the Disk Utility app to find and solve possible storage issues. Here is how to check the Mac startup disk for issues:
Manage storage to make your Mac run fasterOften a MacBook or iMac runs slowly because there is no free space on the startup disk. If there is a shortage, the system has nowhere to store the temporary files and operate correctly. For stable Mac performance, at least 10% of free space is required. This means that you should clean up Mac storage and recover more free space. To check how much storage space you have, go to the Apple Menu → About This Mac → Storage. You can click Manage to see what types of data take the most space and decide what to remove. However, this report does not give a lot of information and only suggests that you will have to free up disk space by deleting files manually, one by one. We recommend using the MacCleaner PRO, which provides a similar report on disk usage, and immediately provides tools for clearing each category of junk and user files. Clear junk filesYour Mac stores lots of junk files, such as application caches, logs, language resources and so on. Individually these files may occupy only a few kilobytes, but all together they will consume gigabytes. Manually finding and removing caches and other service files on a Mac is not easy. Here is how to quickly and safely clean up junk files on your Mac with MacCleaner Pro:
Delete old and large filesYou should optimize your disk usage and stop storing bulky content on your Mac hard drive. Recovering some free space will make your Mac run faster. Use the Disk Space Analyzer tool from MacCleaner Pro to analyze your disk space usage, discover large and old files and easily operate them.
Remove duplicate filesIf, after analyzing your disk space usage, you are going to move your bulky data to external storage, we recommend that you first check your storage for duplicate files. You can find duplicates manually. However, the best way to find and remove duplicate files on a Mac is to use a special tool from MacCleaner Pro – Duplicate File Finder. This tool automatically finds duplicate photos, videos, documents, and any other type of duplicate files. You can even find and clean up similar photos and similar folders. Here is how to remove duplicates and get more Mac storage:
Uninstall unused appsYou may have many apps that you haven’t used for a long time. You should take a look at all your apps you installed for some earlier tasks, and remove the ones you no longer need. To quickly and completely remove apps from your Mac, use a special tool from MacCleaner Pro – App Cleaner & Uninstaller.
So what to do if your Mac is slow?Now you know all the reasons why your Mac may be running slow and how to optimize its performance. You can fix these issues manually or use MacCleaner Pro, which will keep your Mac clean and free from unneeded apps, extensions, duplicates and malware files. The MacCleaner Pro software is an all-in-one solution that allows you to safely clean up and speed up your Mac.
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This article is based on our expertise in cleaning and optimizing Mac hard drive. We’ve been working 10+ years in developing special disk utilities for making a Mac work smoothly. We regularly explore the latest updates of macOS and update our apps and our articles according to system changes. If you have any questions related to this guide, contact us by email. |