How to speed up a Mac

The Activity Monitor is the first step to finding out which programs are using the most resources and slowing down your Mac. To access the display, type the term ‘Activity Monitor’ in the Finder search box. You can also find it under ‘Utilities’ in your Applications folder.

The monitor displays the CPU, memory, power, disk, and network usage of your programs. If you want to make your Mac faster, pay special attention to the CPU usage. Click on ‘% CPU’ to list all processes from largest to smallest usage. Check the memory pressure graph under ‘Memory’ – if you see yellow or red bars, your memory is no longer sufficient.

In the activity display, you can speed up your Mac by terminating individual processes. This is only a temporary solution. Most likely, your Mac needs to be properly cleaned and permanently freed from unused programs.

A desktop filled with folders and files can be a drain on your computer’s memory. Clean up your desktop by sorting your files into folders and storing them in ‘All My Files’ in the Finder rather than directly on the desktop.

Disable icon previews of files that remain on the Desktop. To do this, right-click on your Mac to the desktop and select ‘Show display options’. Then remove the tick from ‘Show icon preview’.

When your Mac boots up, it often starts programs that you won't need. You can speed up your Mac by stopping automatic login of these services. By the way, you can also use this principle to make Windows 10 run faster.

For Mac devices, click the Apple icon at the top left of your desktop and select ‘System Preferences’. Then click on ‘Users & Groups’ and select the ‘Login Items’ tab. Select the items you don't want your Mac to start automatically, and then click the minus icon.

Many systems have a cache that can be emptied manually. You can also optimise your iMac or MacBook with this measure.

First, close all applications and press the key combination [Shift] + [Cmd] + [G]. Then type ‘/Library/Caches’ in the text editor to go to the cache folder. Click ‘Open’. Select the temporary files you want to delete and drag them to the trash. If you are sure that you do not want to recover any deleted files, empty the Recycle Bin.

You can also make your Mac run faster by turning off unnecessary system features and services. Click on the Apple icon at the top left of your desktop, select the ‘System Preferences’ option and then go to ‘Sharing’. Disable certain services such as ‘Bluetooth Sharing’.

You can also check for Apple updates via ‘Software Updates’ in the system settings. With an up-to-date system, speed may be optimised.

Most modern Macs are now equipped with SSD hard drives, which renders defragmentation unnecessary. If yours is one of the older HDDs, you might want to use the iDefrag tool. However, you can make your MacBook faster by clearing your hard disk. As a general rule of thumb, your operating system needs about ten percent of your total memory to store temporary data.

Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner of your desktop and go to ‘About this Mac’. Then select ‘Disks’ and ‘Manage ...’. A window will launch providing several options to manage your data. With ‘Review Files’ you can check files by size and delete or move them to an external hard drive.