[2024] 11 Best Ways to Speed up a Slow Mac

When people heavily rely on Macs to deal with daily jobs, they are turning to face a problem as days go by – as there are more files stored and programs installed, the Mac runs slowly gradually, which affects the working efficiency on some days. Therefore, speeding up a slow Mac would be a must-do thing for maintaining the device functioning properly.

In the following, the 11 best tips to speed up a slow Mac will be introduced to assist you in regaining efficiency while working with the device. Please scroll down to read if you also wish the help.

Part 1. Why is My Mac Running Slow?

Before diving into the solutions to speed up a slow Mac, evaluating the reasons causing your Mac to run slowly could work the issue out more effectively. To sum up, the following reasons could be the core factors dragging down your Mac’s performance:

• Insufficient storage space: when a Mac doesn’t have sufficient storage space, it fails to store the programming files or cache data that keep the device running normally, in slower the performance of certain functions on your Mac.
• Many apps running in the background: the CPU of your Mac would be occupied when there are too many apps opened in the background, which could easily result in a slow Mac.
• Outdated Mac system: the macOS system would keep updating to provide people with the best experience. When you are utilizing an outdated system, it becomes incompatible with many latest developed apps and programs, which could easily lead to the apps flashback or having to wait for the apps to respond for a long time, finally resulting in the slow-running speed of your Mac.

A slow Mac could greatly lower our efficiency in dealing with our work, and studies, or even affect the experience while entertaining like playing a video game, and that’s why we need to speed it up. Now, the upcoming solutions to accelerate a slow Mac will be demonstrated in detail. First, let’s walk through the introduction of an automatic program to clean up Mac and speed up its performance with easy clicks. Please keep reading.

Part 2. A Quick Way to Speed up a Slow Mac

The most common reason causing your Mac to perform slowly should be the time when it is running out the drive space. Nevertheless, manually cleaning up Mac to speed up the performance would waste both your time and effort. For people who have simple access to accelerate their Mac’s performance, MobePas Mac Cleaner turns out to be the best option.

MobePas Mac Cleaner provides an automatic way for Mac users to speed up Mac performance simply by processing several easy clicksstrong>. This smart program is sensitive to every file, data, and app stored on your device. By sorting them in orders, people can directly check the options to remove unwanted items, including some outdated cache data, large and old files, duplicated items strong>, and more, in returning the occupied storage to your Mac.

The smart scan mode of MobePas Mac Cleaner is a highlight, which enables people to clean up their Mac to speed up the performance with only one click. It can smartly sort out all the files, including the system trash, cache data, programming files, and so forth for selecting to remove within one shot. Now, simply walk through the manipulation of MobePas Mac Cleaner to see how it helps to speed up your Mac by deleting all unnecessary items.

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Step 1. Install Mac Cleaner on Mac. When you open the program, select Smart Scan from the left panel.

Step 2. Click on the Smart Scan button in the middle. Subsequently, MobePas Mac Cleaner would proceed to scan through your Mac and detect all the files for selection.

Step 3. Once the scanning process is completed, the junk files of all categories will be displayed in order. Please select the type of files you need to remove to speed up the Mac.

Step 4. Simply tap the Clean button after the selection, and MobePas Mac Cleaner will initiate cleaning up the files for you. It takes only a moment to complete the cleaning. After this, your Mac would be sped up again as the storage is retained.

On the left panel, you can also select to delete more items from your Mac to retain the storage space such as cleaning up those large and old files, duplicates, or unused apps. MobePas Mac Cleaner can meet your needs to free up storage and speed up the slow Mac again easily!

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Part 3. How to Speed up a Slow Mac Manually

Replacing the Mac cleanup, there are also other effortless options to speed up a slow Mac manually. By following the manipulation guide, you would find them still easy to master. If you also consider that your Mac is running much slower now, try these methods to speed it up again.

Restart Your Mac

When your Mac has kept running for a long while, letting it have a rest could probably make it speed up easily. Through Mac restarting, the overloaded processes and created memories could be cleared, enabling the Mac to run smoothly again. Here shows you how to do it to speed up the Mac:

Step 1. Click on the Apple icon in the top-left corner.

Step 2. Select the Restart option from the menu.

Step 3. Wait for your Mac to shut down and restart again.

Quit Demanding Processes

When your Mac has to resolve running multiple processes at once, its performance of course would be slowed down. To free up the CPU for speeding up Mac, quitting some demanding processes in the Activity Monitor could be a ration solution. Here’s how to process it:

Step 1. Turn to Finder > Applications > Utilities and launch Activity Monitor.

Step 2. Switch to the CPU tab to check what programs are occupying large CPUs and result in a slow Mac.

Step 3. Please double-click on the process that has taken high CPU usage.

Step 3. Select to Quit the process and confirm to turn it down.

Clear System Files and Documents

As Mac relies on hard disk space to ensure smooth performance, you should not use up all of it for storing items. Furthermore, regularly clearing up some outdated system files or documents created while running the device can always keep your Mac running at a fast speed. Here’s the way to clean up the files and documents generated by the Mac system:

Step 1. On the Apple menu, click on the About This Mac >> Manage.

Step 2. When all the files and documents are sorted here, simply open any folder to select the files or documents to delete.

Step 3. Eventually, confirm Delete.

Remove Unused Apps

Applications are always the largest part occupying much Mac storage. So when your Mac turns to run slowly, glance through your apps list to evaluate if there are some unused apps you can uninstall to free up space on your Mac. To remove apps, simply reach them in Launcher and long-press on the icon to delete. For removing the related app’s files or data, MobePas Mac Cleaner‘s Uninstaller is also a rational choice as it can detect all the related files of the apps and delete them with only one click.

Manage Login Items

Login items are also known as Startup items, which are the apps or utilities that could automatically run while your Mac is opened or logged in. These items would greatly assume the CPU or RAM while you start your Mac. Therefore, when your Mac runs slowly now, reviewing the login items and removing some of them can be helpful to speed up a slow Mac:

Step 1. Please click on the Apple icon, go to System Preferences > Users’ Groups, and select your account to log in.

Step 2. Subsequently, switch to the Login Items module and view the list to check what items would be fired up when you start the Mac.

Step 3. Select the items you need to prevent the launch when the Mac starts, then click the – icon to remove them.

Update Your macOS System

As the macOS system would always update to be compatible with the smooth running of more apps, and also improve the user experience by fixing bugs, keeping your macOS system up-to-date is also a way to ensure your Mac could always perform at the best state, as an old system may fail to support the latest developments of many apps or system programmings, in that leading to a slow Mac.

To update the macOS system, here are the procedures you ought to follow:

Step 1. Please select System Preferences > Software Update from Apple’s menu on top of the screen.

Step 2. When you notice that there is a system update available, directly click on the Upgrade Now or Restart Now option.

Step 3. Wait for Mac to automatically process installing the new system for you.

Attention: To keep your macOS system always up-to-date, ticking the Automatically keep my Mac up to date here is recommended.

Reduce Visual Effects

When the user interface of your Mac contains many visual effects, such as some animations, it easily causes slower Mac performance as time goes by. Therefore, if you could reduce unnecessary visual effects on Mac, it could be effectively sped up again. There are two recommended ways you can try to adjust the visual effects on Mac:

Reduce resource usage: go to System Preferences > Dock to disable the Animate opening applications, and Automatically hide and show the dock options.

Disable transparency: Turn to System Preferences > Accessibility > Display to select Reduce Transparency.

Reduce Desktop Clutter

Keeping your Mac desktop in order is a way to speed up a slow Mac, as Mac would regard every file on the desktop as a window that it has to support running. In other words, when your desktop has more files, the Mac has to take up corresponding RAM space to run them, leading to slow performance.

Therefore, organizing files properly on a Mac desktop to reduce desktop clutter is an appropriate way to speed up a slow Mac as well. It also facilitates your efficiency as you can quickly access the ordered files within seconds.

Mac itself also offers you a simple way to declutter your desktop. Click Desktop on your Mac, then click View > Use Stacks, and you will see your files neatly categorized and piled up. (This method will not delete anything from your desktop, but can help you well organize the files on it.)

Free up RAM Using Terminal

When the RAM capacity runs out, extra RAM is needed as your Mac would run slower now. RAM is the space that is utilized to save the generated temporary data while running the apps on Mac. When it has insufficient space, the Mac has to react slower as the app’s running process would be dragged down. Therefore, seeking the RAM controlling panel to speed up the Mac by freeing up the RAM space is also an efficient solution (not all Mac models allow people to install extra RAM to the devices). The following procedures will guide you to process it quickly:

Step 1. On your Mac, please turn to Applications > Utilities > Terminal.

Step 2. Please enter the command to trigger RAM: sudo purge. Also, press the Enter key when you have entered it.

Step 3. You would be required to enter the password of the administrator account signed in on Mac. Once logged in, the command you just entered will automatically clean up RAM for you.

Since your Mac regains much RAM space, its programming and app running speed would both increase now.

Swap Your HDD for an SSD

Updating the hardware of an old MacBook is a way to renew it into a speedy computer. To do it, you ought to replace the HDD (hard disk drive) with the latest developed technology SSD (solid-state drive), which can perform with faster speed while helping to process multiple tasks running at 5 times faster, and also extends the battery life by 30 minutes or even longer.

If you wish to update the old Mac hard drive to SSD now, first, it is recommended to select APFS+ as the format for the new SSD drive, which is friendly to the eco-system of Mac computers. What’s more, don’t forget to back up the Mac data before processing the hard drive update, preventing you from losing any important data unexpectedly.

Conclusion

A slow Mac would drag down your work and study efficiency as you may rely on the device to process. These 11 solutions to speeding up a slow Mac again to regain high productivity. Try them out if you are also seeking solutions to speed up Mac performance in no time.

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