In today’s world, speed has assumed prime significance. Especially while using technology, a slow device which takes ages to perform a single operation does not really leave you in the best of moods. So all those of you who are Apple Mac users and are pretty frustrated about the speed at which their device is working, you have come to the right place. You must probably be thinking what the point was to spend such a huge amount on a Mac when all it was going to offer was slow speed and a sluggish user experience. Well the problem is not with your Mac. The problem is with the way you are using your Mac. Certain user techniques make your Mac overloaded with tasks and hence slow down its speed and performance. Sometimes it does happen that you are unknowingly slowing down your Mac because of your own actions. So it is very important for you that you know all those actions or commands which are decreasing the performance of your Mac. Read on to discover what all measures you can take and what all changes you should make to your usage of your Mac so that your Mac works in a perfect condition:-
- Close unnecessary apps:
This is where you must start your speed-up process. You must shut down any unnecessary apps and programs which are running on your Mac. Generally, it is a user tendency not to shut down the Mac properly after its use. And this is the reason why some apps are in running condition for weeks. Hence your Mac devotes memory and CPU space to all those unnecessary programs and apps. This is why the app that you want to use does not work efficiently and thus you feel that your Mac is running slow. So the first thing you must do is close all running apps. You can press Cmd+Tab to open the App Switcher and then press Cmd+Q to shut unnecessary apps down.
- Determine the amount of free space you have:
Your Mac’s performance depends a lot on the free space in your hard drive. The hard disk needs to have continuous space in order for your Mac to read and write files in an efficient way. This is where defragmenting a Mac comes into play. This is a pretty long process so there are alternatives. It would work just right if you have enough free space on your drive. Mac OS has its own safeguards which prevent fragmenting in your device. But to ensure that these safeguards work properly, you must have at least 10% of your memory in your disk empty. You need to delete all unnecessary files which include old emails, outdated versions of apps, and backups. To find out how much space is available on your Mac, open the Apple Menu and select ‘About this Mac.’ Select storage from the various tabs and you will be able to see how much free space your Mac has. You can then click on Manage to explore some of the options as to how you can optimize your Mac so that the device works without any hiccups. Thus, if you find your iMac running slow, this step is one of the first things that you should do.
- Move your photos and videos:
A considerable portion of your Mac’s memory is taken over by photos and videos. One of the options of increasing your storage space could have been to transfer all these files to iCloud Photo Library. But this also does not work as deleting the photos from the Mac would mean deleting them from all your devices. Thus there are tools such as DropBox or Google Drive. Here, you can back-up all your photos and videos and store them in an online server. This means that you can still access the files over the internet, but these files will not consume any of your storage space. This is an excellent method to save on your disk memory.
- Stop programs from opening at startup:
You must take this step to improve on your Mac’s speed. To do this, open System Preferences and select Users and Groups. Then proceed to the Login Items tab to access the list of programs which are opened at startup. Select an item that you don’t want to do this and you’re done with it.
- Use automated performance apps:
In case you are not too comfortable using the above techniques, you can go for third-party apps, which are designed to help you improve the speed and performance of your Mac. Some of these software are Dr Cleaner, App Cleaner and Uninstaller, Malwarebytes, Dashlane, and Trim Enabler 4.
So these were some pretty cool tricks to help you speed up the performance of your Mac. Do implement them and watch your Mac work at an incredible speed!
