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You may ever ask “Why is my Mac so slow?” In fact, the slow running of the Mac is a big problem we don’t want to address. How can we speed up the Mac? I believe you will get a satisfactory answer today.
Your Mac is a glorious device that allows you to do many things. Usually, it behaves very fast right after you buy it. But over time, it builds up a lot of problems and slows down.
As devices age, wear slows it down. This is true for all Macs like iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro. But you don’t have to be frustrated about it. There are ways to improve the performance of your Mac device and fix Mac running slow problem .
Fortunately, in this article, we will tell you the reasons why Mac runs slower than before. Also, we will provide you with some fixes for a slow Mac device problem. Let’s begin.
Reason 01: The hard disk drive is almost full
One of the most common reasons for a slow running Mac is a hard drive that is getting too full. If you free up more space on your Mac device , the load placed on it decreases. This results in the acceleration of the Mac device.
Solution: Clean your Mac hard drive
The solution to a complete hard disk drive is to clean it. This might sound easy to you, but in reality, if you do it manually, it’s a little tricky. It’s easy to clean up and remove old movies, clean up your desktop, and delete old unnecessary files.
However, a system cleanup is much more complicated. Also, you need to know which actual files can be safely removed to add more space to your device. One thing you can do is use a tool called FoneDog’s Mac Cleaner.
Step 1. Download FoneDog’s Mac Cleaner
First of all, you need to download FoneDog’s Mac Cleaner on your Mac device.
Step 2. Launch Mac Cleaner
After downloading Mac Cleaner, launch it on your Mac. Then, you can see three main modules on the home page: Status, Cleaner and ToolKit.
Step 3. Select Cleaner
Cleaner gives you the cleaning function for system, photos, emails, files, apps and other fields on your Mac.
Step 4. Choose iTunes Junk
Here, take iTunes Junk as an example to show you how to clean junks on your Mac to make your Mac run faster.
Note: As for the other tools like ” System Junk ” and ” Send Junk Email “, the steps to clean them are the same as those of ” iTunes Junk ” tool.
Step 5: Scan the Junk
Click on the ” Scan ” circle and wait a few moments. Once the scanning stage is complete, you can click the ” View ” button to review the scan results. Or you can press ” Re-scan ” to scan the iMac / MacBook / MacAir again.
Step 6: Review and select items
As you can see on the left are the categories of iTunes files and their detailed files are on the right. Choose the ones you want to clean, then you can delete them by clicking the ” Clean Button“.
Step 7: Confirm your choice
There would be a pop-up window called Confirmation coming on. Please press the “Confirm” button if you are sure to delete the selected files; otherwise, press the Cancel button and return to the previous page.
Your iTunes files have been removed. Please be patient and wait for the cleaning process.
Reason 02: Outdated Mac OS
The reason your Mac running slow could be that the Mac OS X or macOS you use is very important when it comes to performance. An older version of the operating system is typically slower than newer versions. This is why Apple releases new versions every now and then.
Solution: update your Mac operating system
The solution to this is simple, of course, you just need to update your Mac operating system. It is recommended that you have the latest Mac version of its operating system. At the moment, the latest operating system is macOS High Sierra.
- Updating to the latest operating system isn’t throwing junk into your device. Think of updating as something that will make your device smoother and faster.
- To improve the performance of your Mac device, you need to update your Mac’s operating system. You simply need to go to the Mac App Store and look for the latest version of the operating system, macOS High Sierra.
- Download and install the latest version and you will notice that your device’s performance will be improved.
But what if your Mac device is still slow after updating to macOS High Sierra? Well, don’t be frustrated. It could be due to broken disk permissions. You simply have to fix the disk permissions using a tool.
Reason 03: The startup results on the device slow down
Starting up your Mac device will launch many applications within it. Lots of stuff loads in the background. This causes the startup process to slow down. But sometimes, your Mac’s slowdown doesn’t continue on startup. Sometimes it persists for as long as you are using the Mac device.
Solution: Give your Mac a fresh start
To make your macOS faster, you need to give your Mac a chance to have a fresh start. If your boot process isn’t handled, you’re putting a lot of load on your Mac even before the race starts. Leave your Mac longer to start moving due to the load it has on it. That’s why you need to lighten the burden you put on your Mac’s startup process.
- You can make your Mac open faster by deleting unnecessary or unwanted applications.
- Simply visit System Preferences, then go to Users and Groups. After that, select your username.
- Then, hit Access Articles. Select the name of a specific application that you don’t want to open during the startup process.
- After that, press the minus symbol (-) which you can see below the list to the left. This will delete the application from the startup list. The fewer applications in the startup process, the better. This helps speed up a slow performance Mac device.
- You can disable and stop some unnecessary startup items in the list to reduce startup time and improve Mac performance with PowerMyMac – Sign in feature.
Reason 04: Lots of stuff running in your background
This is similar to that of the third problem above. When you have a lot of applications and system files running in the background, it can be difficult for your Mac to devote resources to even simpler tasks.
Solution: Kill the processes running in the background
The solution to this problem is to actually kill the processes running in the background using the Activity Monitor. Activity Monitor will show various processes that are taking up the system resources of your Mac device.
If you simply close an application that is taking up too many system resources, you will get a noticeable speed boost for your Mac device.
- Launch the Applications folder.
- Launch the Utilities folder.
- You will be able to see Activity Monitor. Launch it.
- Check out the various applications and processes running on your Mac device in real time. On this side, you will be able to find out what’s actually causing your Mac device to slow down.
- Click on the tab named Memory. It is located at the top.
- Next, press the Memory filter which is at the top of the displayed list. This will involve sorting programs based on the number of resources or space they take up within their Mac’s RAM. The higher this number, the more power they consume.
- Click on a specific application you don’t want in the list.
- Press the gray colored “x” icon that can be displayed in the corner of the window (top left). Of course, it’s best not to touch things you don’t know about.
Reason 05: old hardware
Unfortunately, it is possible that your Mac device is very old, so your Mac running slow. If the hardware has reached its peak, obviously, the speed and performance of your Mac device will be throttled. There is too little you can do to fix this. What you need to do is take serious measures at hand.
Solution: Purchase of new hardware
If you’ve done all of the above and your Mac is still performing poorly, you may need to check your hardware. It may need to be updated. Some Mac devices are actually beyond just help. Plus, upgrading your Mac device can be expensive. You may also need to look into purchasing new hardware or purchasing an entirely new Mac device.
Reason 06: Unorganized desktop
Unorganized desktop? Do you have a desktop that’s seriously like Trash? Well, the time has come to clean up your desktop. You may not know this but there is something about these desktop icons.
Each of them is actually an active window that your Mac’s operating system actually has to process and render. If there are a lot of icons inside the desktop, your Mac device will really slow down.
Solution: Organize desktop items
Obviously, the solution here is to organize desktop elements. This is to improve the speed and performance of your Mac device. It’s best to organize the various files on your desktop and put related files into folders.
If you don’t need a file, you can just move it to the Trash. Cleaning the desktop is not a difficult thing to do. It is actually very simple. Therefore, you can just do it because it makes it really profitable when it comes to speeding up and improving the performance of your Mac.
Reason 07: Your browser is full of junk mail
Most people who have Mac devices use it while connected to the internet. This means that if your browser has slow performance, your Mac device will also have slow performance. If you have a lot of tabs open and a lot of extensions running, your very powerful browser and Mac device will really slow down.
Solution: Remove unwanted extensions
The solution to this problem is to remove unwanted extensions. This will make your browser and your entire Mac device faster. Sometimes, hidden plug-ins, add-ons, and extensions are generally disguised as free apps or software. You simply have to download one thing and the next thing you see are pop-ups, search bars, and ads displayed on your monitor.
However, there are still extensions that are actually legitimate. In addition, they extend the actions that can be performed with the browser. However, each extension loads your Mac device and results in a slower speed. Finally, these tools may even covertly collect your data.
Here are the steps you can take to manually remove extensions in Chrome:
- Open Chrome.
- Click on the three dots icon. It is located in the upper right corner of the screen.
- Press More Tools.
- Press Extensions.
So take a look at all the add-ons and extensions you have installed in Chrome. You can totally delete extensions or you can disable them. You prefer to delete the extension when you don’t know what it actually is.
How to manually remove extensions from Safari:
- Open Safari.
- Press Safari.
- Press Preferences located on the top menu.
- Select the tab named Extensions.
- Delete the extensions you don’t want.
Your Mac device will run faster while using the browser, you should reduce the number of open tabs. IT consultants suggest opening less than 9. That way, the browser isn’t overloaded. Also, the title would be visible for each tab.
Reason 08: Outdated cache files
There are multiple types of cache files. These include user cache, system cache, app generated cache, browser cache, etc. User caches are connected to your user account and usually comprise about 70% of all junk mail within your Mac device. Manually deleting these would involve typing and clicking.
Solution: Delete some caches to improve Mac performance
The solution to this problem is to delete some caches to improve the performance of your Mac.
- Launch Finder.
- Press Go to Folder in the Go menu.
- Type the following ~ / Library / Caches
- Press Enter.
- Find the cache folder tree.
- Visit each individual folder. Delete the files inside these folders.
- Empty Trash.
Note that it is not necessary to delete the folder but only the contents contained within it.
Now you simply need to remove the system caches. However, during this time you must type the following path: / Library / Cache
The steps you should take are actually the same. You should find the main cache folder. Then, find the subfolders inside it. Delete all content within the aforementioned folders.
Before actually starting with deleting files, you need to back up your cache folders. It is because it can actually be risky.
The best solution would be to use FoneDog’s Mac Cleaner. Here is a guide on How to Clear Cache on Mac .
Lots of outdated cache files
Reason 09: Finder uses a lot of memory
The Finder, by default, is used to locate files in the All My Files view. When you have a large amount of files on your Mac device, the Finder obviously slows down. This is because opening every window out there becomes difficult for Finder.
Solution: Adjust Finder preferences
The solution to this problem is to adjust Finder preferences.
- Launch Finder.
- Go to the main menu and select Preferences.
- Look for the menu named New Finder Window
- Simply change the All My Files default settings to other more specific locations. An example would be the Downloads folder.
Automatically, Finder will launch in this new location the next time you open it. That’s all! You have saved some memory resources on your Mac.
Reason 10: visual overload
You may already know this, but rich graphics and animations use a tremendously huge amount of resources. We are not telling you to switch your Mac to its older interface. But if you have a slow Mac device, simplicity is always the best.
Solution: soften your animations
The solution here is to tone down your animations.
- Launch System Preferences.
- Go to the Dock.
- Disable by unchecking the following items: Magnifying, the animation used when opening applications and automatically hiding and showing the Dock.
- Press on Minimize windows using.
- Edit the Genie effect and change it to scale. This is because scaling is a simpler form of zooming and uses fewer memory resources.
Reason 11: damaged SMC settings
System Management Controller is called SMC. It is the one that manages many functions for your Mac devices like system volume, fan, power, lights and many other parameters. Most of the time SMC preferences get corrupted and this results in a slow Mac device.
Solution: Reset SMC
The solution to this problem is to reset SMC to factory default settings. Here’s how to do this if the device’s battery is actually removable:
- Turn off your Mac device.
- Remove the battery.
- Press the power button and hold it for a few seconds.
- Place the battery back inside the device.
- Press the button for power on. After that, boot your Mac device normally as you always would.
For those batteries that are not removable:
- Turn off the Mac device.
- Press the Power button along with the Shift + CTRL + Option keys.
- Press and hold all of these keys for about 10 seconds.
- Release the keys.
- Restart your Mac device by pressing the power button.
SMC Recovery on Mac Pro, iMac and Mac Mini:
- Turn off the Mac device.
- Remove the power cord by unplugging it.
- Let 15 seconds pass by waiting for it.
- Reinsert the power cord by reconnecting it.
- Wait a few more seconds.
- Turn your Mac device back on using the Power button.
Reason 12: Spotlight overload
Your Mac device has its own search engine, Spotlight. Before it can actually locate anything, create a map of every single file you have. If you have an old Mac device and have more than a single drive, then a problem occurs when re-indexing a very large file tree.
Solution: Spotlight tuning
The solution to this is a Spotlight setup. Similar to what we did with Finder, you’ll limit the area in which Spotlight searches.
- Visit System Preferences.
- Go to Spotlight.
- Go to the Privacy tab.
- You can simply exclude some selected folders from Spotlight search. This will make its load lighter. Just drag and drop the folders into the displayed pane. You should start with the heavier ones.
This way, Spotlight will avoid indexing these volumes and folders. Your Mac’s performance will improve as it will take less time to index. Another easy way is to use PowerMyMac – Spotlight feature to turn them off.
Reason 13: Huge amount of temporary files within memory
“Why is my Mac so slow?” There is a simple fact that many people don’t know. Every app you launch on your Mac device creates cache files. The longer the application is actually active, the more cache it creates that builds up gradually. The same is true for all types of temporary files.
Solution: Restart your Mac device regularly
The solution to this problem is to reboot your Mac device regularly. There is always an argument between people who would like to sleep their Mac and people who always reboot their Mac. However, even if we get in the middle of the two, there however, I’d like to say that restarting your Mac device has its advantages. The restart of the results on your RAM is freed. At times when your Mac device doesn’t have the RAM it needs, it would actually borrow from virtual memory. But he can’t do it indefinitely.
When this happens, your Mac device becomes slow. So, here comes the rainbow wheel! To free up more RAM, you need to restart your Mac device from time to time. Any temporary files created by your operating system and the applications it contains will be deleted. Also, any applications that you “think” have closed (but are still running in the background) will be forced to close. Eventually, your Mac will now be updated and its performance will improve.
Reason 14: Your FileVault puts a huge burden on your memory
To prevent intruders from copying files, enter FileVault. It’s actually very beneficial, but there’s a big BUT there. If your Mac is quite old, turning on file encryption can actually slow it down, especially when it comes to hard drive performance.
Solution: Turn off FileVault encryption
What to do about it? Well, you need to turn off FileVault encryption. Here’s how to do it step by step:
- Visit the Apple menu.
- Go to System Preferences.
- Select Security and Privacy.
- Press the icon that looks like a lock. This will unlock it.
- Enter the password.
- Press Disable FileVault.
- Press Turn Off Encryption.
Now, Mac performance will get faster. It’s because FileVault places a lot of weight on processor cycles when encrypting and decrypting files.
Reason 15: conflicting or broken permissions
Files within your Mac’s operating system have certain permissions. These permissions determine which services and applications can access certain files. Over time, permissions problems occur. This results in Mac OS freezing, crashing and slowing down.
Solution: fix disk permissions
The solution to this problem is to fix the disk permissions. You can do this through the application called Disk Utility. This can be seen in Applications and then in Utilities. Once you’re inside Disk Utility, simply highlight your device’s startup disk. After that, press the tab called First Aid.
Then, you have to hit the button called Reset disk permissions. Your Mac device will now go through the entire drive. It will locate and repair permissions. This way, when an application requests a certain file, the Mac device can locate it immediately.
However, you must remember that this specific option is not available for users who have OS X El Capitan. This is because Apple has included System Integrity Protection (SIP) functionality. This feature automatically corrects the disk permissions. The problem is that not all applications undergo these automatic repairs.
Reason 16: Huge piles of old files and large files
There are usually two locations on your Mac device which becomes the data dump. These two folders are the Trash and Downloads folders. This results in less hard drive space and, of course, a huge drop in your Mac’s performance.
Solution: Clean up the Trash and Downloads folders
The solution here is to clean up the trash and downloads folders. Simply right-click the Trash folder, then select Empty Trash. Then, you need to visit the Downloads folder and sort all the files according to their size. You will be able to see things you think you don’t need. These could be previously downloaded photo albums or movies.
You can do a few things for these. One thing you can do is locate the DMG extension files in the Downloads folder. You can also transfer media files from your Mac device to your iCloud account. You can also transfer files to the external hard drive. Finally, you can also remove duplicate files and folders.
One thing you can use to remove duplicate files and folders is to use FoneDog’s Mac Cleaner . It has a module there that says, Duplicate Finder.
Reason 17: A huge number of icons located in the preference panes
When you download an application, they sometimes include shortcuts in System Preferences. Of course, these icons still take up a certain amount of space. Even if the application has already been deleted, sometimes the icons are still there.
Solution: Clean the preference panes
The solution here is to clean the preference panes. The speed of your Mac device will increase significantly especially if you delete the extra content present in the preference panes. Here’s how to do it step by step:
- Visit System Preferences.
- Perform a pane exam.
- Find out about the application icons you don’t use regularly.
- Right click on these applications.
- Press Remove.
- Empty the trash to get rid of them completely.
There are many reasons why your Mac device is running slow. The most common reasons are included here. The best thing you can do to speed up your Mac though is to remove unnecessary clutter, junk files, old files, and large files. To do this, you need FoneDog’s Mac Cleaner . It is an all-in-one tool that contains 16 different modules for different purposes. Now, choose a suitable solution to solve “Why is my Mac so slow?”.
