Is your Mac running slow? Nothing gets on your nerves like waiting ages for browsers to open or apps to launch. Staring at your screen waiting for your computer to respond is a nightmare, especially with deadlines hot at your heels.
Don’t let your productivity slow to a standstill. Before taking your slow MacBook for repairs, take your hand at troubleshooting first.
Deduce why your MacBook is running slow so you can formulate a treatment plan. It’s kind of like playing doctor with a machine. Here is a list of common MacBook problems and a step-by-step guide on how to resolve them.
1. Not Having Enough RAM
Computers are like electric brains firing signals, reading code, and shooting commands. Computers access and store temporary information using their random access memory (RAM). With too much going on in the background, things can get a little fuzzy.
When your RAM is full, it slows down your Mac by putting it on overdrive. Your Mac could be a little tired and frazzled. Too many programs running in the background and too many open tabs are causes of a slow MacBook.
Check if your RAM is full by opening Applications. Head to Utilities, then Activity Monitor. Look for the Memory and go to the Memory Pressure graph, which indicates your RAM capacity.
Green means you have sufficient RAM, and the problem could lie elsewhere. Yellow means your Ram is running low, and red signifies that you’re almost out of RAM space.
Too many open tabs also slow down your Mac. Bookmark your tabs for later if you still need them, clear your cache, and close your browser. Terminate your apps and background processes to gain some speed back.
The activity monitor lets you know which apps take up most of your processing power. You might not even need the ones that you have running in the background.
2. You’re Out of Space
Check your storage usage by clocking the Apple logo on the upper left corner of your screen. From there, go to About This Mac and select storage to view your memory space and a breakdown of your disk.
Have you reached or are you close to reaching your storage capacity? If this described your situation, you might want to consider deleting files and freeing up space on a mac.
Freeing up space on a mac is usually the easiest fix of a slow MacBook. Are all your files important to you? You might not be aware that these files have duplicates lying around.
Want to know how to free up space on a mac? First, organize your files and sniff out any doppelgangers taking space. There are programs that do this for you.
Throw out junk files and uninstall any apps that are collecting dust on your computer to free up storage. Make sure you head over to your recycle bin and empty the trash, as well. You could also read this blog here to learn ways to free up space on your MacBook.
3. Clean Up Your Desktop
The easy accessibility of your Mac’s desktop makes it a very convenient place to drop your files. However, dumping and cluttering those files on your desktop leads to a drop in performance. Your Mac generates file previews for these files every time you start your laptop, even if you don’t open them.
Using up unnecessary power decreases your Mac’s performance speed. Consider a spring clean-up for your desktop. Take a little time out of your day to put files away in folders and check to see if your laptop speed improves.
Alternatively, there is an option to turn off icon previews. Do this by clicking your desktop, selecting View, and drop-down Show View options. Click this to expand to View Options for your desktop.
You’ll see options to show icon preview and item info. Untick these options to display your files as generic files to reduce processing power.
4. Check for iOS Updates
iOS updates are crucial in maintaining your Mac’s product security and productivity. When possible, update on a regular basis when the company makes updates available.
Updates come with new features like bug fixes and bolstering any vulnerabilities found in the old system. Even if updates don’t introduce new features, keeping your security up still makes them worth downloading.
Keep your laptop core up to date if it starts getting slow. The latest operating system version is 15.2.1, so make sure your computer keeps up. Check out how to update your iOS here.
5. Check for Malware
Malware might be the reason your Mac runs slow. Apple products are generally immune to a lot of today’s malware. However, some pesky viruses and bugs can get past the system and mess up your computer.
Disconnect your computer from the internet and enter safe mode. That way, you operate on the minimum software required, and you secure any more of your data from getting sent to malware servers.
Enter safe mode by restarting your Mac and holding down your Shift key. Review your online activity and recall if you downloaded any suspicious apps. Close the application.
Malware slows down your computer by funneling processing power towards the malware. Use your CPU monitor to scout where all your processing power is going if you can’t find the malware.
Run a malware scanner independent from your innate security to remove most virus infections. The next thing to do is verify your browser to make sure you don’t get reinfected. Finally, clear your cache.
Prevention is better than cure. After extracting the malware from your Mac, install a beefy security system to protect you from future incidents.
Restore Your Slow MacBook to Maximum Speed
The first step to getting your slow MacBook back to tip-top shape is to work out the problem. The problem might arise from malware, a full drive, an exhausted RAM. Organize your files, apps, and tabs and purge your computer from malware and unnecessary files.
Thank you for reading our article! For more troubleshooting tips and tricks, head over to our other blog posts. Empower yourself by learning how to diagnose and solve your tech problems.
