We all wish our beloved Apple Macbooks could run as fast as they did when they were fresh out the box forever. Sadly, that’s not the case. The more you use a computer and begin to fill it with your data and clutter, they begin to get bogged down and performance takes a serious downturn.
Do not fear! There are plenty of ways you can turn this around and vastly improve the performance of your aging Macbook. Here are our top 5 tips for making your Macbook faster!
1. Clear the Clutter
Over time, you begin to accumulate hundreds, if not thousands of old files, applications, photos, videos and music. This data quickly begins to fill up the hard drive on your Macbook, greatly affecting its performance. Ask yourself – do you really need everything that’s currently sitting on your hard drive? Those old photos from that party years ago that everyone’s forgotten about by now? That 2 hour long video of your nephews fifth grade school play? That application you downloaded the free trial for and then never used? Increasing the available space on your Macbooks hard drive is one of the best ways to dramatically increase it’s performance.
2. Delete Unused Language Files
Many of the applications on your Macbook will include multiple language variants for users across the world. You’ll likely only need the variant of your native speaking language, yet those unused language files are still taking up valuable space on your Macbook. There are several methods you can get rid of these files, the easiest of which being with a free application called Monolingual. This simple app does one thing and one thing only – deletes the language files you don’t need. You can manually select the languages you wish to keep, and the app will get rid of the rest. Simple!
3. Clean Up Start-Up and Background Running Apps
When you install an application on your Macbook, how often do you take time to read everything in the instillation dialogue window before you click ‘Install’? I’m guessing never. You’d be surprised at what some applications are asking you to agree to when you click on that ‘Install’ button. Many of them ask you to agree to let them launch every time you turn your Macbook on, and just sit quietly and run in the background. This may not seem like a big deal, but they are using up valuable system resources when you don’t want them to. Hogging precious CPU and RAM capacity which could otherwise be used towards the task you’re working on. To clear out these unwanted startup applications, head over to your System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items. There you will be able to select the apps you actually want to launch on startup, and get rid of the apps you don’t.
4. Repair Disk Permissions
This is commonly debated, but repairing disk permissions can supposedly help your Macbook run more efficiently. Open Disk Utility from your Applications folder and click on “Repair Disk Permissions”.
5. Shut Down More Often
Your Macbook, like you and me, needs to rest sometimes in order to perform at it’s best. Your Mac also has a few tools that it uses automatically to help maintain itself. Some of these tools only run during shutdown and startup so get into the habit of turning your computer all the way off every now and then to allow these tools to do their work. It’s also a great way of extending the life of the internal battery in your Macbook.
Still not getting enough of a performance boost? It may simply mean that your Macbook needs a RAM upgrade. Please note however that not all Macbook variants allow users to upgrade the internal RAM themselves. A quick Google of the specific model of your Macbook followed by the words “RAM upgrade” will give you an answer right away. Typically these RAM upgrades are fairly inexpensive, and can keep your Macbook running smoothly for years to come.
Computers perform at their best when they are clean and have room to breath. Consider this next time you use your Macbook.
Source by Sam Thomas
