Having a fast computer is convenient and allows you to be efficient. But even Macs can slow down a bit at times. You need to know what to watch, how to proceed and what first actions to take to regain some speed. Check out our recommendations below to speed up your Mac with a few simple actions.
Detect and exclude resource-intensive processes
If things are slower than usual, or if your Mac is heating up for no reason, some uncontrollable process may be slowing it down.
It is therefore important to perform scans without changing your security configuration, specifically antivirus, Firewall and VPN : If you don’t have one yet, make one VPN (https://nordvpn.com/fr/download/mac/) to determine what is best for you. Next, here’s how to find out what’s happening on your system and determine which processes are consuming resources:
Click Go in the system bar and go to Utilities, then to Monitoring. This is where you will find all kinds of information regarding your performance, but there is a lot to consider. Let’s start with CPU: Activity Monitor.
central processing units (CPU, or simply “processor”) at the heart of your computer because it calculates everything you do. If it is on other tasks, it will slow down the general operation of your device. To determine what is bothering you, make sure you are in the CPU tab and sort by %CPU to provide the most consuming processes.
You can leave out anything related to macOS, Such as WindowServerAnd kernel_taskAnd sysmond or anything started under root usernames, _hiddAnd locationd where _windowserver.
Next, look for anything that consumes between 5% and 10% of the CPU. Once you are sure that you do not need this process, you can simply close it by clicking X or Exit.
In fact, it is not only the processor that is prone to slowing down due to various tasks. You can look at different tabs to check which processes are consuming power, memory, disk or network. As for power, it is possible to use the sub-tabs to sort by 12 hours of increment in power consumption to get the apps that consumed the most in the last 12 hours.
If applications appear very often and are very high in the list, you must choose: are they necessary for you and your Mac, can you do without them or find alternative tools, unacceptable slowdowns? Only you can solve these thorny questions and breathe life into your Mac.
Manage programs that run at startup
Is your Mac taking a long time to start up? If so, it’s time to disable some startup programs, and reduce the burden of processes running in the background. Heres how to do it:
- Click the Apple logo
- Go to System Preferences
- Then Users and Groups.
From there, click on Login Items. You will then see all the items that run on startup and you can select the ones you want to remove by clicking on the minus icon. You will then need to enter your password to save the changes.
Start updating your macOS
In the past, macOS updates have made a small improvement in terms of speed. Those days are long gone. The latest versions released by Apple give a great place to optimize resource usage, speeding up your Apple computers.
So it is best to always keep your operating system up to date with the latest version and make sure that these updates are enabled to be automatic to improve the speed of your Apple device.
To check if macOS updates are available, click the Apple icon then go to System Preferences and then click Software Update
The available ones will appear and you will then have to click Update now to start the process which can be a bit long. However, at the end of the process, you may see an improvement in the performance of your computer.
Increase your RAM
When all the previous procedures did not work, and your device is still slow, your hardware configuration might be causing the problem. To boost it, it is often necessary to add more RAM to your computer. The RAM It is what we call RAM: the one that is immediately filled up for its work.
Either way, we recommend looking at Apple’s instructions for your device to see what’s recommended for memory upgrades. Feel free to go to a licensed professional if in doubt.
RAM upgrades are generally recommended if you have less than 4 GB of RAM. If you do not use heavy software for photo or video processing, you will rarely need 8 GB or even 16 GB of RAM. However, some programs may force you to take a leap forward to have more flexibility at certain stages of operation. Anyway, if you increase your RAM, you will see the difference and your computer will be much faster than before.
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