Day by day, bit by bit your Mac has got slower and slower. You don’t really notice because it has happened so gradually.
Until one day you have a chance to use another machine, that’s when you realize what your beloved Mac has become, as slow as an asthmatic ant carrying some heavy shopping.
Well all is not lost, while this list is unlikely to make you mac into a speed demon overnight, one of the following suggestions may just help.
Cluttered Desktop
Having too many files and folders on your desktop can slowdown your machine. Put these files into folders in your home directory and create aliases to them on the desktop.
Corrupt Preference Files
Preference files can easily become corrupt and can make programs act weird or run slowly. If your Mac is slow using a particular application you can try deleting its preference file and relaunching he app (applications create a new file when they are relaunched if they can’t find an existing one). It’s worth making a backup of the old file just i case you lose some settings that are hard to replicate.
Smart Playlists on iTunes
Smart playlists can make iTunes slower as they have to reload every time iTunes is launched. Disable live updating by going to File, Edit Smart Playlist and untick Live Updating.
Too Many Widgets on Dashboard
Each Widget on your Dashboard uses memory, again you can check the memory usage of your widgets by using the Activity Monitor. Remove any used or memory hogging widgets using the Dashboard control panel.
Caches, Log files and Temporary Items
It doesn’t hurt to regularly clear out built up Caches, Log files and Temporary Items an easy way to do this is to use an application like OnyX. If you prefer you can delete Caches manually, they can be found in Home/Library/Cache.
Wrong Firmware
Using the wrong Firmware can cause all sorts of problems, keeping your software up to date on a Mac is so easy there is really no excuse. Just click on Software Update in the Apple menu. You can also schedule your Mac to automatically check for updates, go to System Preferences and Software Update and tick Check for updates. You can change the frequency of the checks using the drop down menu.
Not Enough RAM
Software can only take you so far. Upgrading your RAM will probably give you the biggest speed increase out of any of these tips. You can use the Activity Monitor application (under Utilities in the Application folder) to check if your Mac would benefit from more RAM. Click on System Memory tab and have a look at the pie chart at the bottom. If the chart is largely red or orange you are running out of RAM. Also take a look at the Page Ins and Outs numbers, if these are continually increasing, its time to upgrade your RAM.
Permission Conflicts
Some issues with applications loading slowly or acting weird can be remedied by repairing permissions. All files in Mac Os X have a set of permissions, these determine which users or applications can have access to them. Sometimes permissions are incorrect and not what the operating system expects. To repair disk permissions you can use the Disk Utility app (in /Applications/Utilities). Select your startup disk and click th First Aid tab, then click the Repair Disk Permissions button.
Hard Disk Is Nearly Full
Your Mac automatically utilizes free space on your Hard drive as Virtual Memory to free up the RAM. Try to make sure you have 10% free space available for this task.
Lots of Login Items
Removing unwanted or little used programs from your login items. To change your login items go to System Preferences then Accounts and click the Login Items tab.
Unused System Preference Panes
Clearing out unused preference panes can help free up memory and disk space, check under Other in System Preferences to see what you can remove. You can either disable it in its menu or delete it entirely by removing it from ~/Library/PreferencePanes.
Unused Applications Left Running
All running applications use up your memory and CPU resources, quit applications if you are not going to use them for a while. Some programs have memory leakage issues which means they tend to consume more and more memory the longer they are running (again you can spot these in the Activity Monitor) it a a good idea to quit and relaunch these every so often.
Animated Wallpapers
Animated or slide show wallpaper can really impact the performance of your machine so its a good idea to turn this off.
Firefox Overloaded With Extensions
There are loads of awesome Firefox extensions so its easy to get carried away and add too many. Take a few moments to go through your Add-ons (open Firefox and go to tools then Add-ons) and uninstall any you no longer use.
Internet Settings
If you are finding your browser slow try clearing the cache and deleting your history. In Safari you do this by going to the main menu and clicking Reset Safari, tick Clear History and Empty the Cache then Reset. In Firefox go to Preferences, Privacy and click the Clear Now button.
Favicons in Safari or Firefox
You may see an improvement in your browsers performance by deleting your cached Favicons, for Safari just delete the files in /Library/Safari/Icons. If you use Firefox 3 read this useful tutorial on macosxhints.
Massive Mailboxes
If you have a massive mailbox with thousands of messages it’s going to take longer to load. Try to delete messages you no longer need and split larger mailboxes into folders.
My name is Christopher Lee and I'm co-founder of the questions & answers community 
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WHAT? Macs run slow? I thought maccies would NEVER admit to that! I thought only windows ran slow, if you listen to maccies! Nice to see that I am right and that a computer is just a computer and they ALL suffer from many of the same problems, even linux. AND neither is any better than the other. After all, macs use the exact same hardware windows and linux machines use.
Trouble is that Macs last 5-8 years and run into this kind of trouble. My PC friends have to get new units that don’t just slow down, but stop working in a couple years. Nice ideas and I’ll try a few.
jmndos: you must be a retard, seriously. How did you gauge that mac’s grind to a hault from this article? I guess you never used a mac huh? Your pos ass pc will likely crash 12 times through the course of reading this article.
of course all computers slow down when you put more stuff on it, like downloading music, files, programs, updates but macs are a shit load more reliable than PC’s are. Macs slow down but not too much and you can easily fix that, by just organizing your stuff and deleting or emptying your trash. PC’s are another story, they just completely suck. not only do PC’s slow down because of you filling up your memory but they are at a high risk of viruses on pretty much every program you use, which in the end, your PC will crash. anti-virus programs can stop alot of the well known viruses and bugs out there but they cant stop all of them and there are new viruses coming into this world everyday. The only real advantage that PC’s have on macs is that PCs can play games, or good games. but who really gives a shit cause macs are built for real people and not some fat loser kid who stays home and plays WOW the whole day
Actually, replacing files on your Desktop with aliases to them doesn’t fix the first issue, it leaves you right back where you started. OSX treats ANYthing on your desktop like an open Finder window, with all the associated processing overhead. You want to keep your Desktop as clean as possible, and that includes aliases.
I have never really noticed my Mac running slow
Anyway check this out for the iPhone http://www.whichwebsite.com/2009/Apr/twitterena_iphone_app_promo_code_giveaway.html
Another thing I’d suggest is to check that your Mac’s air intake is clear of dust. Macs that get too hot will throttle down, and Mac OS X won’t tell you what’s happening.
thanks – my Mac has been dragging badly – and I picked up a few tips here which seem to have helped – you don’t know of a Mac os10.4 version of OnyX or anything similar??
Onyx for previous Mac OS X versions (including 10.4) is avail at
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/download.html
My ibook was running great then one day it started running really slow. A week later it wouldn’t boot at all past the spinning wheel. Turns out it needed a new logic board ouch!
I ended up replacing the whole computer since the price difference wasn’t that different. Thank God for Carbon Copy Cloner
“as slow as an asthmatic ant carrying some heavy shopping”.
Watch Blackadder Goes Forth much?
If you’re using Firefox on your Mac and it’s running slower, make sure you’re clearing your download history whenever you close it, and not letting it build up (there’s a preference). I found my FF was never clearing the Download history, and the longer it got, the slower FF got.
Finola:
Look here:
http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs2/english/onyx_tiger.html
- Barrett
rule of thumb for free disk space would be 10x your RAM. so if you have 2GB RAM, it would be best to leave 20GB disk space. this is to leave enough space for your swap space and temporary files
A few years ago Mac was selling Mac Minis with 512MB of RAM. You need at least 1GB. Fortunatly Apple doesn’t move enough products for people to whine and complain like they did when PC makers tried to push Vista out the door on systems with only 512MB.
I was going to buy the memory from a Mac store and have them install it but they were trying to charge $150 for a 1GB stick with “free” installation.
It’s standard laptop memory and 1GB can be had from NewEgg.com for all of about $20-30. I ended up just busting out the putty knife and doing it myself.
It’s pretty trivial to keep a PC running well: have plenty of memory, clear up unused programs and every few years buy a new hard drive. Like all mechanical things hard drives start to wear down and cause your computer to run really slow. So if you have plenty of memory and you don’t have a lot of junk installed and your PC is still slow, chances are it’s your hard drive.
Thanks for this article, it has extended my to-do list somewhat.
I used to be guilty of having too may Dashboard widgets and used way too many Firefox plugins. Thinking back I had a number of widgets and plugins that did basically the same thing, how ridiculous!
Alas, I am guilty of a very cluttered desktop and a single (an very large) inbox in Mail. I blame Spotlight!
Nice tips and really useful. I experienced closing apps is the most valuable. Please help this apprentice to get a Mac by a donation:
http://project-mac.de/the-project/
Great article. Good job. A must read for every newbie Mac user.
I totally love this list, thanks a lot!!
holy crap… I should have known an article like this would get people going pretty good…
PC’s aren’t crap
I hate Mac’s for reasons I can’t begin to understand… this is just how i feel
I think it’s more specifically “I hate Apple”
Windows wants to be a good OS… but fails at every corner because it seems like they just try to load the crap out of it and end up leaving so many loose ends even after they release that anyone with any interest in it could spot a hole.
the only way I can see windows coming back is if
A. The world population starts getting dumber…
B. They completely overhaul the architecture and get closer to a unix type OS… and then developing a translation layer similar to that of WINE.
Cool thing I like about unix is the added security, not just security as in other users can’t break into my computer and take my filez… but my computer doesn’t do shit unless I want it to do shit…
Ubuntu 9.04 FTW.
OSS makes me feel like I’m in control.
A few of these helped me ramp back up, thanks!
Thanks great article.
Great Article.
wonderful article.
it really helped me a lot!
Tip #18 – When you are an idiot, you get what you deserve.
I’m afraid I bought a 1.0 version of software, something I said I wouldn’t do, but it was iWork by Apple and I gave it a shot. The Numbers program IS really slow on my PowerBook G4 with 1GB RAM and the feature list is way shorter than I expected, especially the charts. Alas there is no discount to upgrade. Lesson (re)learned. I’ll try some of these tips and see if it has any impact on iWork Numbers (1.0) performance. I do hope the 2009 version is faster. I’m not optimistic in this case.
I hope the screenshots are a joke. When I see a desktop that looks like a city dump or junkyard, I know I am looking at a Windows user’s computer. (Or a former Windows user’s computer.) I can’t imagine anyone living with all that clutter on a Mac.
My desktop has two things on it, my hard drive and a folder. I keep it neat for a few reasons. First, it takes too much time and stress to find anything in a mess. Not just for the visual, manual way that I locate stuff; Spotlight searches also take longer because it has to dig through more files and spit out more results per search. Second reason is privacy. Anyone in the room can see the content of your desktop. Third, I hate looking at junk. It’s ugly. Finally, every item on the desktop requires more resources from the system than if it were filed away. Drawing the little icons and keeping them constantly in view means that the computer spends more time and effort that could better be used elsewhere.
If you really want to speed up your computer, move the media off the hard drive. Or start over and reinstall the OS from scratch (but do update to the newest version in the order Apple recommends) if you really want to fly. Every little kilobyte you picked up over time can be wiped away…
I want to add that there is a faster way to troubleshoot preferences. You don’t have to make a backup copy, just move it someplace safe.
Open preference folder> click suspected corrupt preference> drag it to trash (or desktop for the squeamish/forgetful)> and launch the program or whatever was acting up.
If everything runs well, you don’t need that preference and can safely delete permanently.
If all hell breaks loose, move it back to the preference folder.
Make sure you don’t have two preference files for one application, that may cause a problem.
I like your list.
thank you for this article!
it helped me speed up my slowing down almost 4 yrs old mac osX
Oh yeah, this is the best thing i’ve seen today
ONE VERY IMPORTANT THING MISSED IN THIS TOPIC: FONTS
PROBLEM: if you have so many fonts installed in your system, it will perform slow & even sometimes corrupt fonts delay the process more…
REASON: all softwares rely on fonts, the more fonts you have the more time they’ll take while loading and even working & sometimes become the reason for MAC crash (OK… my PC users will be very happy on hearing this)
SOLUTION: So far I found FontAgentPro quite useful software (I believe there will be other also in the market) I have 700+ fonts installed in my MAC (as I work in design studio) but I keep most of the fonts OFF that leaves me with only common used fonts which are only 150+. And when ever I need other fonts I simply turn them on.
I hope it will help. very nice article.
& guys please stop comparing MAC / PC / Linux / etc. they all are good its just your own preference. I have two MACs one PC & I admit when I have serious project to work on I prefer MAC, but when I’m in the mood of playing game or other experimental stuff I prefer PC. So both are very important part of our life… God bless Steve & Bill.
Thank you for this post. Very VERY helpful. I am that person who clutters the desktop with files and just about spit my coffee when I saw that screen capture. I know what I will be doing today.
Hey my mac is running extremely slow i download a little so i suspect a virus but i have been told macs dont have viruses. Also my hard disk has plenty of space but i only have i little bit of free ram space, which is weird cause i only have a few things open at a time.
Chris, THANKS for taking the time to write this. By the time I worked my way to the end of your list, my Mac had gone back to its old, speedy self.
thank you very much! your advice saved me $1,700 and the thrill of buying a new macbook. it took me 30 minutes to go through the list, and it is working perfectly again.
If your Mail.app is very slow, “vacuuming” the “Envelope index” may help as well:
http://www.hawkwings.net/2007/03/01/a-faster-way-to-speed-up-mailapp/
Been using Macs since 1996 and I must admit I’ve never ever heard the one about a cluttered desktop slowing the machine down. My desktop is always clean, but only because I find things faster that way!
Yes, the two most important things on this list are hardware-related.
The number one by far is RAM. Stuff as much RAM into your machine as possible. It’s cheap nowadays. My MacBook Pro has 4 GB. I’d put in 8 GB if I could. (Can I?)
Number two: ample free hard disk space. A harddisk that is almost full causes new files to be scattered all over the place where there are still free blocks on the physical medium. This causes longer seek times for reading and writing. The fuller the drive, the worse this gets. Remember that reading from/writing to hard disk is only about 1/1000 as fast as RAM, so slowed down disk access matters a lot. De-fragmenting helps a bit, but only for a short while, so it’s not really worth it.
Another ugly performance problem occurs, when viewing Flash content in Safari (64-bit) on Snow Leopard (10.6) – because the Flash Player is still 32-bit, and for me it makes sense, that some internal 64-bit 32-bit conversion happens..
Therefore: While Adobe is working on a 64-bit Version of Flash Player, switch Safari back to 32-bit Mode (Right-click on Safari.app → Informations → check “Open in 32-bit mode”). Restart Safari and your Flash content should perform a lot smoother.
Cheers,
Jörg
I always do a little house keeping every 6 months. I backup what I really need to a local server. Then do a fresh install of the OS. Then only install what I need, a uncluttered system is a happy / faster system. This works accross the board with both my PCs and Mac.
WOW I just did repairing permissions and BOOM! NO LAG anymore…. it says libsqlite3.dylib was in a wrong permission… these important files can screw you badly…. the lag was crazy on my 2 months old $2000 macbook pro
This helped a ton! Thanks.
This is an awsome article, my MacBook 13,3 is now faster than ever!
Thanks a lot Christopher!
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