The macOS offers a computing experience that provides an intuitive way of accessing the impressive power that resides in your machine. Over time you can fill up an incredible amount of storage without really trying at all. This won’t actually erase any data — it’s like performing a lower-level reboot of your Mac. Select your main drive (likely labeled “Macintosh HD”). Run the application and easily create a map of a selected disk volume. There might be disk images still hanging around from application installations that can be safely removed. You can fix most common causes of a slow Mac yourself, and relatively easily. At iKeema, we are a team of dedicated experts with profound knowledge devoted to solving all your queries related to M ac/MacBook Pro/MacBook Air, and other all other iOS devices . An example is a Flash player extension or Grammarly to help you avoid grammatical mistakes. If you have less than 20% free space, you should seriously consider some disk maintenance. Chrome is famous for having fast performance. 2. How to fix a slow Mac Detect and close memory-consuming apps. This article is aimed directly at owners of an Apple MacBook laptop computer. Follow these steps to do so: Note: If Apple Diagnostics doesn’t start, try holding Option+D instead. There is no denying that trying to use a slow MacBook can be a frustrating experience, especially when you know how fast it can run. Even desktop computers like the iMac are notoriously difficult to repair yourself—Apple uses heavy amounts of glue and solder in its manufacturing process. This method will speed up your Macbook by up to 250%. Any problems that arise there will likely require that you replace your Mac’s logic board. Fixing this issue is really easy. Spotlight is Indexing. Disk Drill data recovery software offers a great free tool that can help you quickly accomplish this goal. If you want Apple to repair your machine, you have to pay out of pocket if the warranty’s expired, unless you have AppleCare. 2. Apple’s software engineers are constantly striving to improve your MacBook’s operating system. MacBook slow Wi-Fi. You are Using an Outdated MacOS. For example, you might discover there’s a problem the computer’s memory, but you won’t know which stick of RAM is faulty or what’s wrong with it. It removes junk files from Safari, Chrome, Firefox and Opera all in one place, covering caches, cookies, browsing history, download history and sessions. Do you see the spinning pinwheel of death every day? Browsers, in general, can be a source of poor performance. Brett has a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Systems and Network, 12 years of experience. If you can figure out what’s wrong, you can take steps to rectify it. Your Mac has a finite number of resources available, limited by factors like processor cores, available RAM, and the presence of a dedicated graphics card. In this way, you can tune your browser and improve the speed with which you can access the Internet. If you use Chrome, Safari or Firefox, there is a good chance that you have purposely or inadvertently installed browser extensions. And when they do eventually die, data recovery is impossible. Solid-state drives generally only fail after some advance warning. In order to have a better performance, no matter you play the games or use some working apps, some users choose to cost plenty of money to buy a new Mac. Even ancient machines with problems fetch more money than you would expect. If it’s not functioning correctly, you might encounter slowdowns, freezes, and sudden shutdowns. Over time, many Mac computers can become slow. Most Macs have solid-state drives. Low disk space is another common cause of macOS slowdown. Click on the “FirstAid” button to fix the volume errors and fix them. If your machine constantly crashes or is sluggish due to a failing hardware component, it’s time to consider purchasing a new one. To see how much free space you have on your Mac, click the Apple icon in the top-left corner, and then click About This Mac. Clean Your Mac’s Hard Drive One of the first places to look when you discover your Mac is running slow is your hard drive. If your internet is as slow when your smartphone or other device is connected to Wi-Fi, chances are, the trouble is not with your Mac. How to Fix a Slow MacBook Pro by Upgrading the OS If you asked, “Why is my Macbook Pro much slower than normal?”, take a quick look at the last time you updated your version of macOS. RELATED: 10 Quick Ways to Speed Up a Slow Mac. If your Mac does not have enough space, the slow boot time may occur. If you know how far you can push your Mac, it will help you avoid performance issues in the future. This can be caused by many things most commonly low hard drive space, updates to macOS and application problems. All the stuff above is just an excuse / a screen for a diabolical upgrade that has the effect of robbing me of hours and hours of trying to find out how to fix it, and if effect turning my MAC into a PC! Reasons Your MacBook Pro/Air is Slow and How to Fix These Problems 1. Router issues can cause problems with the internet. Your MacBook was never more streamlined than those first few times you fired it up. But problems can arise—particularly if your machine is showing its age. Follow the steps below to check the health of your SSD: For a more detailed look at your drives, download DriveDx (it’s free to try). What Is "Binning" for Computer Components? You can then free up space on your Mac. To fix the slow connection, try restarting your router. Here are some of the easier tips you can try to speed up your Mac. Some programs that you don’t need may be starting and they can cause your machine to slow substantially as it starts up. Although the slow WiFi problems hounding Yosemite have barely been carried over into El Capitan, you may still encounter some problems. Most Mac owners shouldn’t encounter too many performance issues over the first three years or so of use. I personally own and make extensive use of a MacBook Air. Plus, the Finder slow issue can disappear too. Finder should revert to its usual performance characteristics. When you're trying to save a file and the spinning pinwheel of death appears. Downloading applications, creating documents, and storing digital media of all types can quickly start to eat up the free space on your hard disk. Update the macOS software on your MacBook. Hungry software, like Photoshop, open in the background. You can visit this page to see if your laptop can handle Mojave, the newest iteration of macOS. For years now, Apple releases a new operating system for your MacBook each year. This article has been approved by Brett Johnson, Data Recovery Engineer at ACE Data Recovery. Not as simple as it sounds, cleaning up a hard disk actually takes a lot of manual efforts. This figure applies mostly to laptops with small drives. As your Mac ages, expect its performance to decline. When your MacBook Pro starts running slow, the first (and easiest) step is to declutter.Start by checking your hard drive. Review your storage use. You can kill processes the same way you would an app that’s crashed. So, I guess a major macOS update will slow down boot time. If it says “Verified,” your drive is performing normally, with no issues. Replacing HDDs with SSDs was the right decision as it improves the overall performance. In addition to speeding up your machine, it presents a more appealing experience to enjoy your background image without having to peer around numerous icons. Click the “Storage” tab to see a breakdown of your current disk usage. 7. Fix 5: Close Tabs and Windows This one is a simple fix that can make your computer speed up quickly. There's no reason to put up with your Mac being slow. Apple Diagnostics can only tell you so much in the form of a reference code. If your Mac has a problem with a particular component, the fix becomes more complicated. One example of this would be if you use a web-based spreadsheet tool, like Google Sheets, to crunch a lot of data. Clean your Mac as much as you can to reclaim more free disk space, as this helps improve the overall performance of your Mac. Click the “CPU” tab and view the “% CPU” column in descending order. Free up some valuable disk space and speed up your MacBook at the same time. Allowing them to become too large can be detrimental to your computer’s performance. You can delete this file by locating com.apple.finder.plist in the ~/Library/Preferences/ folder. Fix: Clean up the hard disk. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. You can fix most common causes of a slow Mac yourself, and relatively easily. Follow the steps below to speed up your Wi-Fi. Fix It When Your iMac is Slow after macOS Update A macOS update should improve system crashes and speed — but that’s not always the case. And fast performance means it gets to use a lot of Mac’s CPU resources compared to other browsers. pic.twitter.com/RUThfobvLS, — Catty 🦇 (@_hellocatty) October 1, 2015. pagespeed.lazyLoadImages.overrideAttributeFunctions(); Tim Brookes is a technology writer with more than a decade of experience. If you switch to a Mac-optimized browser like Safari, it will help, but you still might need to curb your tab addiction. Finder can slow down if you are running out of storage space, but you should already have addressed that issue. Here’s how to diagnose the issue so you can fix the problem. As we are all too well aware, time changes everything. Fixing them is a must because after all, they touch on the Mac’s basic and most-used functions. Eventually, the drive will become “Fatal,” and you’ll have to replace it or your Mac. The upgrade is free and may solve the problem of a Mac that is slowing down. It is wise to install these because they often contain improvements. When you first started using the computer its storage capacity might have seemed more than sufficient for the activities which the machine was intended to perform. When you use a USB stick as the storage medium, you can test the RAM properly without the macOS overhead. Tips & tricks to speed up a Mac. 1. Sometimes, just the app that’s crashed exhibits this behavior; other times, misbehaving software might attempt to take your whole machine down with it. Your Companion for Deleted Files Recovery in Mac OS X 10.8.5+ and for Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10, © 2020 508 Software, LLC, its affiliates and licensors, Useful Things You Need to Know about Your MacBook Air, Things You Need to Know about Yosemite OS X, Steps on How to Reset Your Mac Successfully, What Is Mac OS X? When software isn’t working correctly, it can make your machine seem unresponsive. Please try each step until you fix your problem. Reinstall Mac OS X The easiest way to see how much of your hard drive is being used is to open up your Mac’s Disk Utility and select your main hard drive. One of the first places to look when you discover your Mac is running slow is your hard drive. Temporary files can take up a lot of space on your hard drive. Then one day you open up your laptop and realize the sad truth that your MacBook is running slow. Too many extensions and plugins negatively affect your browser’s responsiveness. Processes that have completely crashed appear in red with the words “Not responding” next to them under Activity Monitor. Some common tasks that might push your Mac over the edge are: If you have hundreds of tabs open in a browser like Chrome, don’t be surprised if you encounter memory issues. If you suspect an app crashed, right-click its icon in the Dock, hold the Option key on your keyboard, and then click Force Quit. A heavy hard drive is the main reason for a slow Mac. How to fix: Restart several times. They’re built to last, and I can say that because I’m typing this on 2012 MacBook Pro. To find out how your system is faring at any point, open Activity Monitor and check the “CPU Load” and “Memory Pressure” graphs on the CPU and Memory tabs, respectively. Your Mac includes a basic diagnostic tool you can run yourself. People just seem to love downloading videos! Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to fix this, including: Sometimes the volume errors on your disk may cause slow performance. Applications and media files opened quickly and the performance lived up to all of your expectations. These aren’t prone to failing abruptly the way standard hard disk drives are. MacOS is a common reason for seeing a slowdown with your MacBook. If you encounter repeated issues with the same apps, you might want to consider using something else (or drop the developer an email). Change the Screen Saver on the Chromecast with Google TV, Make Phone Calls From Windows 10 With an Android Phone, How to Use Outlook’s “My Templates” Add-in For Quick Text Entry, How to Use Shortcuts Directly From iPhone and iPad Home Screen, How to Close All Google Chrome Windows at Once, © 2020 LifeSavvy Media. Without enough free space on your startup disk, macOS is unable to run maintenance scripts and background processes that keep your computer ticking along. Open System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver, click the Desktop tab and uncheck the Change picture option. It no longer offers you the lightning fast performance that you grew accustomed to enjoying. There is a reason Apple keeps on updating their operating system. Is your Mac slow? After deletion, close the folder and restart your computer. If you have an old Mac and you’d like to squeeze as much life out of it as possible, here are a few things you can try: The right time to buy a new computer is when you need one. Tips to Fix the Problem of a Slow Macbook Tip #1 – Clear Disk Storage The most recent Mac models come with solid-state drives. This way, the apps using the most processing power appear at the top. Restart your router. Your hard drive gets full when there are so many files and folders saved on it. Click the Manage button. There are also temp folders that contain system files that probably should be left alone unless there is an overwhelming and compelling reason to touch them. Your companion for deleted files recovery. If your Mac is running slowly, the problem can be with a particular application. 10.14 Mojave). Using the intuitive interface and filters in the app allows you to obtain a list of the files on your computer. This works in most cases, where the issue is originated due to a system corruption. Since we launched in 2006, our articles have been read more than 1 billion times. Slow WiFi problem. If you consider the use of your computer to be anything more than a necessity, you probably have some fond memories of the early days with your MacBook. In a worst-case scenario, you can always ask Apple to take a look. He's invested in the Apple ecosystem, with experience covering Macs, iPhones, and iPads for publications like Zapier and MakeUseOf. If your GPU has issues, you might notice unsatisfactory performance in 3D applications, onscreen artifacts and glitches, system freezes, or sudden shutdowns. That happens because macOS is constantly swapping memory to disk, especially for … The above article may contain affiliate links, which help support How-To Geek. Press the power button to turn on your Mac, and then immediately press and hold D on the keyboard. Don’t put up with it! Hardware issues, though, are the exception. Restart your MacBook. Yes, your Mac is getting and running slowly. These simple actions may fix your MacBook internet slow connection. Scroll down to “S.M.A.R.T. Update software to prevent a slow Mac Once in a while Apple releases software updates. You can then use the Mac benchmark charts to see how it stacks up. Sometimes, performance issues have a very simple cause: age. Browser extensions are applications that are used to add capabilities that are not natively part of the program. Working with huge video and photo files or rendering video. If you suffer from a MacBook that is taking longer than expected to startup it could be related to the items that are starting automatically with your operating system. Many users have reported that their computer has slowed down after updating to latest macOS (i.e. How to Reset and Fix a Slow Macbook, Pro or an iMac If the issue is with your Computer or a Laptop you should try using Restoro which can scan the repositories and replace corrupt and missing files. It Clears user junk, … You might have addressed this issue when you performed a hard drive cleanup, but it is worth your time to take another look to see if a further file deletion is possible. https://macmost.com/e-2187 Here are 10 ways you can speed up a slow Mac. These activities can slow down your system. A general rule of thumb is to keep 15 percent of your startup disk free at all times. Just go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and then click on your username. There’s no way around it, though many have tried. If your hard drive is more than 85 percent full, start moving … No wonder you’re confused why is my Mac so slow. But it’s also much harder to fill up a 3 TB iMac than a 128 GB MacBook Air. You can then check the reference code in Apple’s database, but don’t expect to learn too much. Find large files that you no longer need or duplicate files that can safely be deleted. Whether this is due to system or user error, it can slow the performance of your system down to a crawl. If your Mac has a dedicated GPU, you can test it with tools like Heaven or Cinebench. Remember, your old Mac might still hold good resale value. Sometimes, performance issues are caused by memory leaks, where a particular task or process eats up all the available memory. A failing drive can also cause issues. Navigate to the preferences of your chosen browser to see which extensions are currently installed. How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology. A quick and effective way is using a smart Mac cleaning software, MacClean. What can you do? Of course, you won’t get detailed feedback about how to fix your Mac there, either. Here are some of the easier tips you can try to speed up your Mac. Few computers hold resale value like a Mac. I installed Catalina accordance with the full instructions from Apple. Problem 1. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t specify exactly how much free space is required to keep your Mac happy. It can be security improvements or performance enhancements that can solve slow Mac performance in some cases. Manage iCloud through the System Preferences to ensure syncing only happens when you need it. All You Need to Know about macOS, Ways to Recover Your Deleted Data on a MacBook, How to Recover All Your Data/Files from a MacBook Pro, Restore Deleted Data from OS X Mavericks with Disk Drill. For ultimate peace of mind, be sure to back up your Mac with regularly Time Machine. There are many reasons why your Mac might have performance issues. Click on Login items and you can select which of the programs that you want to execute on startup. Deleting the wrong files from within these folders could potentially cripple your machine, so proceed with caution. We would like to share some of the tips that you can use to fix Mac running slow and save your money from buying a new one. That’s because almost everything they do—from surfing the Web to checking email—requires Internet access. Learn the detailed Chrome (Mac) problems and solutions to fix slow Chrome on Mac (Google Chrome not working on Mac) now. Doing two or more of the above (or similarly intensive processes) simultaneously. For many Mac users, a slow Internet connection is synonymous with a slow computer. Once again, you can use Disk Drill to create a disk map and identify large, temporary files that can be deleted. Because a slow startup is normal and expected after the installation of a new macOS version. This will open the Storage Management window. Moreover, … You need an internet connection to do this because your Mac downloads Apple Diagnostics before it runs it. Upgrading to a new OS may cause Finder to run slowly as Spotlight performs its file indexing functions. You can kill these and restart them. This tool is useful to rule out hardware issues, but it’s pretty useless for troubleshooting purposes. There’s not a lot you can do to test it, though. For the purposes of our discussion, they are all considered comparable machines. The company only charges you for repairs after it has your consent to make them. Remember, it’s free to book an appointment at an Apple Store, find out what’s wrong with your machine, and how much it will cost to fix. It usually makes more financial sense to just buy a new Mac rather than pay the premium to fix your old one. It might be the result of small, incremental changes that are not noticeable when considered individually. Resetting the System Management Controller — or SMC — can fix everything from slow performance to startup issues and Wi-Fi hardware problems. Clutter spells disaster for any computer, yet most users don't clean up their computers often — if at all. You can play around with deactivating certain extensions that might only be needed occasionally. We also discussed How can a user fix a Mac Running Slow by themselves, by listing all the proven solutions in simple steps. I had no problem with a slow MAC until installing Catalina. Send them to the trash. Running FirstAid to Fix Volume Errors 11. This utility should give you more information than Apple claims it will. Take the time to organize your files within your Documents or other folders you create and get them off your Desktop. Go to Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Notifications to disable those notifications you don't need. You might be surprised at what is there, and removing some apps can have a dramatic impact on your startup speed.