Technology

How to Speed Up a Mac in 5 Simple Steps

<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><strong>How to Speed Up a Mac<&sol;strong>&colon; Did you know that having ten active web browser tabs can already use around <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;laptopmag&period;com&sol;articles&sol;google-chrome-resource-hog" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">725 MB to 3 GB<&sol;a> of your Mac&&num;8217&semi;s RAM&quest; That&&num;8217&semi;s a lot&comma; especially if your Apple computer only has a minimum of 8 GB of random access memory&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Aside from browsers&comma; having too many active programs can also impair your Mac&period; The thing is&comma; not all these may be &&num;8220&semi;legitimate&period;&&num;8221&semi; Worse&comma; they can run in the background without you even knowing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">It&&num;8217&semi;s at this point that your <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;newsforpublic&period;com&sol;apple-ipad-mini-5-set-larger-version-apple-iphone-7&sol;">Apple device<&sol;a> will start to slow down&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Fortunately&comma; there are many ways on how to speed up a Mac and keep it from becoming all snail-like&period; We&&num;8217&semi;ve rounded up five of these strategies below&comma; so be sure to continue reading&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Take Advantage of Stacks<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Mac screenshots and video grabs automatically get saved on your desktop&period; Some apps&comma; like MS Office &lpar;MS Word&comma; Excel&comma; PDF Doc&comma; etc&period;&rpar; may also use your desktop as a default save location&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Over time&comma; all these files will clutter up your desktop&comma; making it disorganized&period; More than that&comma; having loads of data on this virtual workstation can slow down your Mac&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s because your Apple computer will scan everything it contains during startup&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">So&comma; if it has to scan 50 desktop files on top of all your startup apps&comma; then it will take longer to &&num;8220&semi;think&&num;8221&semi; and &&num;8220&semi;act&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">The good news is&comma; Apple has made the process of how to optimize a Mac easier with &&num;8220&semi;stacks&period;&&num;8221&semi; This feature allows you to keep your desktop tidy by organizing your files in groups&period; Turning on this functionality will automatically save a file to an appropriate stack&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">You may want to check out this link&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;setapp&period;com&sol;how-to&sol;clean-up-and-optimize-your-mac" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">https&colon;&sol;&sol;setapp&period;com&sol;how-to&sol;clean-up-and-optimize-your-mac<&sol;a>&comma; as it has all the steps to enable stacks&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Once you&&num;8217&semi;ve cleaned up your desktop&comma; you may also want to change the default save locations of other apps&period; This way&comma; you can prevent even more files from cluttering your desktop in the future&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">To change the default save location&comma; open the screenshot utility of your Mac&period; The easiest way is by pressing command &plus; shift &plus; 5&period; Click options and then select your preferred &&num;8220&semi;Save to&&num;8221&semi; location&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>Get Those RAM Hoggers Out of the Way<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Experts advise limiting your browser usage to nine tabs during every session&period; As soon as you don&&num;8217&semi;t need anything else from that page&comma; close it so that it will stop consuming RAM&period; This&comma; in turn&comma; lets your device regain a chunk of its virtual memory&comma; which then helps it think and act faster&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Login items can also take a toll on your Mac&&num;8217&semi;s RAM&comma; so&comma; if possible&comma; reduce their number too&period; These are programs that launch during startup without asking you for further permission&period; They&&num;8217&semi;ll continue to run unless you manually close them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">To check for any login item that&&num;8217&semi;s OK for disabling&comma; open Users &amp&semi; Groups &lpar;you can launch this via Spotlight&rpar;&period; Click the &&num;8220&semi;Login Items&&num;8221&semi; tab&comma; and that should give you a list of all apps that upon as soon as you log in to your Mac&period; If there&&num;8217&semi;s a non-essential app there&comma; highlight it and then click the &&num;8220&semi;-&&num;8221&semi; button at the bottom of the list&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>Leave a Considerable Chunk of Disk Space Available<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Having too little disk space on your Mac can also impede its performance&period; It can even pose a security threat&comma; as not having enough physical memory can hinder vital updates&period; These include macOS updates&comma; as well as essential program patch downloads and installations&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Insufficient disk space can also cause indirect speed issues with your Mac&period; This&comma; after all&comma; means that you&&num;8217&semi;ve loaded your Apple device to the point of maxing out its storage capacity&period; When your computer has to scan and run so many programs&comma; you can expect it to take a long time to finish these tasks&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">With that said&comma; be sure to leave&comma; at the very least&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;discussions&period;apple&period;com&sol;thread&sol;1892299" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">5GB of free disk space<&sol;a> in your Mac&period; This is the minimum that you should always have on hand&comma; as it&&num;8217&semi;s the base requirement for macOS updates&period; If you could&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s best to leave at least twice that size for other integral updates and downloads&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>Send All Intentional Deletions to Oblivion<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">One of the best ways to save on disk space&comma; thus&comma; increasing Mac speed&comma; is to get rid of non-essential files and apps&period; If you have time&comma; go through all your folders and send all files that you don&&num;8217&semi;t need to the Trash&period; After this&comma; open the Trash folder and hit the &&num;8220&semi;Empty&&num;8221&semi; button to delete them permanently&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">If there&&num;8217&semi;s not a lot that you can delete&comma; consider moving the ones you still need to iCloud or an extra hard drive&period; You have 5GB free of iCloud storage&comma; so utilizing all that can mean reducing 5GB of used Mac disk space&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">It&&num;8217&semi;s best to use an external hard drive for more significant file transfers&comma; though&period; In addition&comma; connecting an EHD to your Mac will also let you create Time Machine backups&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2>Always Monitor Your Mac for Suspicious Activities<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Contrary to popular belief&comma; Macs do get infected with all sorts of malware too&period; In fact&comma; Macs had almost twice the number of malware detections than Windows devices in 2019&excl; Aside from using valuable Mac memory and space&comma; these programs can also put your security at risk&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">It&&num;8217&semi;s better to be safe than sorry&comma; so make sure you always have your Mac Firewall turned on&period; You should also consider installing additional anti-malware services&comma; like Malwarebytes or Avast&period; Many others&comma; like Panda&comma; Bitdefender&comma; Kaspersky&comma; Norton&comma; and McAfee&comma; are also good options&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">The important thing is to install one of these as soon as possible&period; This way&comma; you can give your Mac a full-on malware scan right away&period; If the program does find an infection or threat&comma; then you could have it quarantined or deleted on the spot&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><strong>Boost Productivity With These Tips on How to Speed up a Mac<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">There you have it&comma; five of the best ways on how to speed up a Mac and boost its productivity and safety&period; If possible&comma; do all these in one go&comma; and from there&comma; perform them weekly&period; Also&comma; if you decide to get malware protection&comma; be sure to schedule daily scans with it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Ready for more computer optimization tips and tricks&quest; Then please feel free to check out the rest of The Gadget Freak&&num;8217&semi;s posts&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

Hardik Patel

Hardik Patel is a Digital Marketing Consultant and professional Blogger. He has 16+ years experience in SEO, SMO, SEM, Online reputation management, Affiliated Marketing and Content Marketing.

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