We have talked a bit about windows PC and what we need to do in order to speed them up and take care of their longevity. Today we are going to be talking about Macs. A Mac can also perform slowly for a variety of reasons. We have compiled a list of things to try if you find yourself dealing with a slower than normal Mac.
Find resource hungry processes
On a Mac, there is an activity monitor that you can use to view your running processes. When you utilize this app you are able to see what processes are running that may be devouring too many resources. T launch this program open up Spotlight search and type in ‘Activity Monitor’. Once you have this opened there are a few items you can view. If you click the “% CPU” heading you can sort by the usage and see what running applications and processes are using the most CPU.
In this application you are able to sort by different options and see where your usage is. You can sort by the amount of memory an application is using, how much energy, and by how much disk space it is using. If a process is using a disk heavily there is a fair chance it could be slowing it down.
Close Applications
Clicking the red ‘X’ button on an application does not completely close it. The Mac OS X software leaves applications running in the dock despite you “closing” them. This generally isn’t a problem, but if you have a Mac that seems to be running slowly, you may want to take a few minutes to close these apps properly. To do this you simply choose the application, right click on it, and select “quit”. This will cause the application to fully close.
Lighten up your web browser
Your web browser is an application that is accessed constantly. There is a fair chance that this application could be the one that is causing the problem. The Google Chrome browser does not perform the best on Mac OS X so try to use the Safari browser that is included with your Mac. This will also help with battery power.
Free up disk space
Just like any other computer, freeing up disk space is always a good idea. When your computer is nearly full it runs slower and takes longer to access information that is stored on it. To check your disk space usage click on the Apple menu and select “about this mac,” and then look under the “storage” heading. If you notice that your free space is limited then you may want to consider freeing up some space.
Reinstall Mac OS X
When you have tried all other options and you still have a slow functioning computer then the last resort may be that you need to try and reinstall your operating system. First of all make sure that you have backups of all your information. This can be a tedious process, however you do not want to lose any of your information that you have stored on your computer. Reinstalling the software on your Mac is not an overly difficult, there are many helpful tutorials online.
These are just a few tips to help getting that slow functioning Mac back on track. If you find that you still are running into problems, there may be a greater underlying factor and it is best to seek out professionals to help you assess the situation.