How to Speed Up Your MacBook: Top Performance Tips
Let’s face it: MacBooks are awesome—until they start feeling slow and laggy. Over time, your MacBook may begin to lag, apps take forever to open, and that spinning beach ball becomes all too familiar. If your MacBook Pro is slow and laggy, don’t worry—you’re not alone! Fortunately, you can take some straightforward steps to help restore or speed up your MacBook Free and its performance.
In this guide, we’ll go over a few simple actions that can speed up your MacBook, and you don’t need any technical expertise to get started. Learn how to speed up your MacBook Pro and MacBook Air without technical expertise.
If your Mac, whether it’s an old Mac, new Mac, iMac, or MacBook Air, starts lagging, apps stop responding, booting up takes forever, or videos stutter, you might wonder, “Why is my Mac so slow?” Here’s how to fix it and speed up your Macbook for good.
Why is my Mac running slow?
An outdated operating system or a full hard disk might slow down your Mac, especially if it’s an older model. If your Mac is new, running too many background programs and apps or having a malware infection could cause it to slow down.
Here are some common reasons why your Mac is running slow:
- Too many background processes:
Running multiple apps or background processes uses up system resources and makes your Mac run slower.
- Full or nearly full storage:
A full hard drive slows your Mac. Clear unnecessary files often. Optimize your storage to keep it running fast. - Mac is overheating:
Overheating slows your Mac. Keep it well-ventilated. Clean the internal parts if needed. - Malware or virus infection:
Malware slows your Mac. Scan often and remove any harmful software. - Unoptimized storage management:
Disorganized storage slows your Mac. Use tools to organize and manage files better. - Insufficient RAM:
Heavy apps with limited RAM slow your Mac. Close unused apps. Upgrade your RAM if you can. - Slow internet connection:
Slow internet causes lag. It’s worse with streaming or online apps. Fix your connection for better speed. - Unused or unnecessary apps:
Too many apps use up space and slow your Mac. Uninstall the ones you don’t use. - Excessive startup items:
Startup apps slow down boot time. Disable the ones you don’t need. Keep your login items simple. - Visual effects overload:
We all love the slick animations MacOS uses—but let’s be honest, all those fancy effects can use up your Mac’s processing power. If you’re feeling like your Mac is slowing, try turning off some visual effects. - Outdated macOS or applications:
Although it can be easy to skip update notifications, staying on top of macOS and app updates can greatly enhance performance. These updates usually include fixes, security improvements, and tweaks that help keep your Mac running smoothly and efficiently.To check for macOS updates:
● Click the Apple logo and select System Settings (or System Preferences).
● Click Software Update and make sure you’re running the latest version.
You should also update any apps from the App Store to make sure they’re not running outdated code that could be slowing things down. So go ahead, and click Update All! - Hard drive limitations:
If you’ve tried all the previous tips and your MacBook is still performing slowly, think about upgrading the hardware. Swapping out a traditional hard drive (HDD) for a solid-state drive (SSD) can boost your MacBook’s performance. An SSD is faster than an HDD, improves boot times, and helps apps load quickly. You will notice a difference in performance.
Upgrading to an SSD is a simple way to speed up your MacBook. An SSD makes your MacBook more reliable and boosts its performance. If your MacBook allows it, adding more RAM can also help with multitasking. - Cache and temporary file buildup:
Caches and temporary files slow your Mac. Clear them to free space and boost speed. - Resource-heavy tasks:
Use Activity Monitor to find resource-hungry apps. Close them to improve performance. - Restart needed:
It might be time for a restart if you’ve been keeping your MacBook open all day (or even longer). It might sound too simple, but restarting your Mac helps clear up background tasks and temporary files that can slow things down. - Demanding visual elements:
High-res wallpapers and widgets strain your Mac. Use simpler visuals to boost speed.
1. Restart Your MacBook (Seriously)
It might be time for a restart if you’ve been keeping your MacBook open all day (or even longer). It might sound too simple, but restarting your Mac helps clear up background tasks and temporary files that can slow things down. It is the fundamental task for speed up your MacBook
2. Prevent Unnecessary Apps from Launching Automatically
A lot of lag happens because apps are launching automatically—even ones you don’t use right away. Some of them are useful, but many are just hanging out in the background, eating up your Mac’s resources.
Here’s how you can fix that:
Click on the Apple logo at the top-left corner.
- Go to System Settings (or System Preferences if you’re on an older macOS).
- Select Users & Groups and click on your account name.
- Go to the Login Items tab.
You’ll see a list of apps that launch when you turn on your MacBook. Uncheck the ones you don’t need right away—this will help your Mac start faster and save it from unnecessary load.
3. Clear Up Space on Your Hard Drive
If your hard drive is nearly full, your MacBook is going to slow down. It’s like trying to run a marathon with a backpack full of bricks. Your Mac needs space to work properly — when it’s packed with files, photos, apps, and videos, it doesn’t have room to do its thing efficiently.
To free up some space:
- Click the Apple logo and select About This Mac.
- Go to the Storage tab to see what’s eating up the most space.
- Delete files you don’t need anymore. If you’ve got old apps, big video files, or downloads just taking up space, get rid of them.
It’s also worth using the Optimise Storage feature in macOS to automatically remove old files or email attachments that you probably don’t need.
4. Clear Out Old Caches and Logs
Your Mac stores temporary files, including caches and logs, to help with performance. But as these files accumulate, they begin to use up space, which can lead to slower performance.
Removing these old files is a simple way to help your Mac run faster.
Here’s how to clear them:
- Open Finder and go to Go > Library.
- In the Library folder, find the Caches folder and delete anything that looks unnecessary.
5. Regularly Update macOS and Your Apps
Although it can be easy to skip update notifications, staying on top of macOS and app updates can greatly enhance performance. These updates usually include fixes, security improvements, and tweaks that help keep your Mac running smoothly and efficiently.
To check for macOS updates:
- Click the Apple logo and select System Settings (or System Preferences).
- Click Software Update and make sure you’re running the latest version.
- You should also update any apps from the App Store to make sure they’re not running outdated code that could be slowing things down. So go ahead, click Update All!
6. Turn Off Some Fancy Visual
We all love the slick animations macOS uses — but let’s be honest, all those fancy effects can use up your Mac’s processing power. If you’re feeling like your Mac is slowing, try turning off some visual effects.
Additionally, we all like to show off our photos by using them as a desktop wallpaper or screen saver, adjusting the settings so that the picture changes every 5 or 15 minutes. However, to allow this to happen, your system must allocate resources to accessing the photos, changing the desktop background, and loading the screen saver. These activities can slow down your system. Open System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver, click the Desktop tab, and uncheck the Change picture option. Then, click the Screen Saver tab, click the drop-down menu next to Start after, and select Never.
7. Close Unused Applications and Browser Tabs
Some apps are more power-hungry than others, and sometimes apps have issues that cause them to grab more than their fair share of your system resources. If you want to see which apps are using up your system resources, open the Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. (Or press Command + space bar and start to type ‘activity’ and press enter to open it from there.) Activity Monitor shows all the processes on your Mac (some of which you can’t, or shouldn’t, close), so go to the menu bar at the top of the screen and click View > Windowed Processes before you do anything.
Now, back in Activity Monitor, click on the CPU button and the “%CPU” column to list all programs by the amount of CPU they are using. You can also use this to see what memory, disk, and network different processes are using. If you see that one app, in particular, is gobbling up a lot of CPU power, then you can close it from here by selecting the app with the mouse and clicking on the x in the menu bar at the top of the Activity Monitor. Take note of the apps that are using the most power; they might require a software update to make them work more efficiently.
Free up your RAM with Terminal
If you don’t want to use a third-party app, you can free RAM instantly with Terminal. You can apply this trick when your system is running out of available memory. In other words, when a particular app freezes up and desperately needs some fresh memory.
Follow these steps:
- Open the Terminal app via Launchpad.
- Paste in the following command: sudo purge
- Press Return.
- You will be asked to enter your system password.
8. Reindex Spotlight Search
Spotlight, particularly in recent versions of macOS, is a terrific tool. But if you use multiple drives, particularly on older Macs, it can take Spotlight time to index and re-index the filesystem. That in turn will slow down your Mac. The answer is to limit the file’s Spotlight indexes. This is done in the Siri and Spotlight panes in System Settings (or the Spotlight pane in System Preferences on older Macs). As you can see in the image above, Spotlight is indexing everything, but if we wanted to omit certain results, we could.
You can also omit certain folders you don’t want Spotlight to search: Click on the Spotlight Privacy tab and drag in any folders or volumes that you don’t want to search into the window. That will stop Spotlight from indexing the folder or volume and thus reduce the number of files it needs to index, meaning it spends less time indexing and should improve performance on your Mac.
9. Reset the SMC (System Management Controller)
If your Mac is still slow and you’ve tried everything, you may need to reset the System Management Controller (SMC). This reset can help fix various issues. The SMC controls important functions on your Mac. It manages power, battery, and thermal settings. If anything is wrong with these settings, resetting the SMC can improve your Mac’s performance.
To reset the SMC:
- Shut down your MacBook.
- Plug in your power adapter.
- Hold down Shift + Control + Option on the left side of the keyboard, then press the power button.
- Press the power button.
After the reset, you should notice that your MacBook works better, especially in battery life and cooling systems.
10. Turn off File Vault encryption
File Vault allows you to encrypt every file you store on your Mac to keep it safe from prying eyes. It also uses lots of processor cycles, however, to encrypt and decrypt those files. If you use it, switch it off and see if you notice a difference in performance.
- Click on System Settings.
- Go to Privacy & Security.
- Click on File Vault.
- Click Turn Off.
(In System Preferences, it’s the Security & Privacy tab that you need).
11. Keep a Tidy Desktop
Another tip is to keep your Mac desktop free of clutter. If you’re using iCloud to sync various devices, your desktop will be synced, and a cluttered desktop will take time to sync. To find out just how much data is on your desktop, open the Finder and right-click on Desktop in Favourites, choose Get Info, and then contemplate why there is 10GB of junk on your desktop.
But that isn’t the only problem. Every file on your desktop is a window with an image in it – either an icon or a preview of the file. Each of those windows and their contents is stored in RAM so that when you switch to the desktop or use QuickLook, your Mac can show you what’s in the window. The more files you have on your desktop, the more data is stored in RAM. That could result in your Mac running more slowly, especially if your Mac’s memory is already under pressure.
This is why it is worth organizing files properly in the appropriate user folder—documents, pictures, movies, etc.—and you may see an improvement in the speed of your Mac. Luckily, since macOS Sierra, it has been possible to automatically sort files on your desktop into Stacks, so that everything is automatically filed away into folders (by Kind or Date). Just open a Stack and delete excess files from time to time.
To set Desktop Stacks up if you haven’t already, click on your desktop and choose View > Use Stacks from the menu.
12. iCloud syncing
Syncing your files and photos with iCloud across multiple desktops and devices can slow down your Mac too. When using iCloud, try to avoid storing large files and documents on your desktop for storage. Only storing the documents and files that are necessary will help speed things up and will have you spending less time waiting for all your files to sync.
This includes syncing your photos on iCloud. If your Mac is too busy syncing all your photos to all your devices and vice versa, you can always turn off iCloud Photos on your device to save your Mac from working too hard and slowing down its performance.
13. Run Apple Diagnostics
If you think that your Mac may need a speed-up because of a hardware issue, you may easily test it with Apple Diagnostics. It is also known as an Apple Hardware Test that helps determine which hardware components are not working properly.
The process is different for Mac computers with different processors.
Apple silicon
- Start up your Mac.
- Continue to press and hold the power button as your Mac turns on.
- Release the power button when the startup options window appears.
- Press Command-D to run the diagnostics.
- Apple Diagnostics will run automatically.
Intel processor
- Start up your Mac and press and hold the D key while it turns on.
- Release the key when the progress bar appears or when you’re asked to select a language.
When the process is complete, it will show a list of the problems encountered, and it will be presented as a list of reference codes. You can find the entire list of Apple Diagnostics reference codes in this article from Apple Support.
14. Upgrade Your Hardware
If you’ve tried all the previous tips and your MacBook is still performing slowly, think about upgrading the hardware. Swapping out a traditional hard drive (HDD) for a solid-state drive (SSD) can boost your MacBook’s performance. An SSD is faster than an HDD, improves boot times, and helps apps load quickly. You will notice a difference in performance.
Upgrading to an SSD is a simple way to speed up your MacBook. An SSD makes your MacBook more reliable and boosts its performance. If your MacBook allows it, adding more RAM can also help with multitasking.
Conclusion
If all else fails, the last thing you can try is to reset your entire Mac and do a clean reinstallation of the OS. This should be considered a last measure, as you’ll need to completely delete your entire boot drive. It will clear all the files in your system and user libraries that were built up throughout the years.
We suggest backing up all your essential files, documents, pictures, music, and anything else you might need once you’ve installed your OS. In the end, if worse comes to worst and your Mac doesn’t show any improvements, it might be time to find a replacement, and in this situation, all that is needed to do this is to speed up your Macbook. To find the new best MacBook price in Bangladesh with the best quality, you can visit Sumash Tech Macbook Section with the lowest price Macbook in Bangladesh.