Mac computers are much better than PC let’s face it, when it comes about in great condition. In contrast to your Windows PC there the hard drive every few weeks, worried about services that to much memory in the background defragmenting fittings caused the taskbar icons CPU cycles or the dreaded that inflate the Windows registry from the slower too big unnecessary.
The multi-threaded design of the operating system on which Macintosh computers is used, allow most management and whist not remember housekeeping tasks in the background, it happens. I have my MacBook for over 3 years had and now is to boot it as fast and technically superior will become a “working position” as my faster Windows 7 desktop PC always – even if it was new out of the box. But with all things there is a but – and Yes, Mac computers can slowly and may in the course of time slow.
But you need to reformat the drive back out like you with a Windows PC, you can try these tips to speed up your system and save time and money. We all know how frustrating it is running on a computer and have to go and a coffee before we begin to use it because it takes so long to power on.
Tip 1: Remove large files
One thing I realised was, that after I had been working with large files on the hard disk, my Mac became slower than before. It took longer to boot up and load the desktop icons and took a few minutes to get up and running. To resolve this, I searched the hard disk for files that were larger than 10mb in size and removed the ones I no longer needed (look in the Downloads folder first!).
Exhibit A.
Not like this
Like this
Tip 2: The desktop is not where you keep your files!
I know it is easy to save all of your files to the desktop and keep them there in pretty colored folders. PC users do the same too, and as a PC tech support person, I have seen many a machine with so many icons on the desktop, they no longer fit onto the screen. The odd thing is, and this goes for Windows machines too, is that the more you have on your desktop, the slower the machine seems to be.
The larger the files, the longer the Mac will take to read them when it loads up, slowing down other services and processes that are starting at the same time. The obvious fix for this is to move the files back to your Documents folder and keep them there. A clear desktop = a happy Mac. If you must have icons or things on your desktop, try creating Aliases for them instead.
Tip 3: Smash that dashboard!
As an ex-PC user, I still can’t get used to the Mac Dashboard and those widget things. I see Microsoft have followed suit in Vista and Windows 7 – and I hate them there too! The thing to keep in mind is that, although it is great to have access to a stocks ticker, a clock and a massive collection of yellow “stickies”, all of these things take up memory in the background. Some of the games widgets really pound the CPU too and can make your Mac slower without you even seeing what is happening.
The easy way to fix this is to either, remove all of the widgets from the dashboard or disable it completely.
To disable the dashboard, open Terminal and enter the following command:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
You can then either reboot the Macbook or enter the following command into the Terminal window:
killall Dock
If you miss your weather widgets and stocks information, you can reverse the command by entering:
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO
And again either reboot or enter:
killall Dock
Tip 4: Don’t start!
Compare to XP, Vista or Windows 7, the Mac OS has very few items that start up when you log in. Although it is possible to have programs start automatically, such as twitter clients or remote control products like LogMeIn. These of course will all take up memory and CPU time whilst they are just sitting there doing nothing, so if they are not needed, get rid of them.
To do this, open up the System Preferences pane, go to Accounts, choose your account and click the Login Items button on the top right. This will show you what is set to load when you log in. Just select the item you want to get rid of and click the minus button underneath, job done!
Tip 5: Neat and tidy, tidy and neat
Over time, the hard disk may get a few files mixed here and there and all the permissions on these files must be kept in check, just so that your Mac (and you) do is what they need exactly do you do if you need in order to do it. Each file has a number of privileges, to say the Mac, who is allowed to access it and what they can do. If these rules and privileges are damaged or mismatched with other files that live in the same place, then it can cause problems.
This is pretty easy to fix but you will be glad to hear. Open the Disk Utility and select your hard disk on the left (usually at the top). Then make sure to open the first aid section and click on the Repair Disk Permissions button at the bottom. The Mac will then sweep through every file and folder on your hard disk and make sure they are all correct.
I have never seen anything go wrong with this process, but safety first – so back up anything you can’t do without.
How To Speed Up Your Mac?,