Is your Mac running slow? Does it take drool-worthy amounts of time to even boot up completely, suffering through the spinning beach ball when trying to open an app? Whether you’re running an older Intel-based Mac or a newer Apple Silicon model, performance problems can manifest over time. The good news is, you don’t have to be a hardware whiz or install third-party software to get your Mac back up to speed. In this article of our 10 favorite Mac tweaks, we will show you some great ways that can easily and almost instantly help your Mac run faster. So jump in, and let’s get your Mac running like the day you opened it.

Read: 10 Essential MacBook Settings to Optimize Your New Device

Mac Running Slow? Try These 10 Speed Steps

1- Reduce Transparency and Motion Effects:

Guided by the appearance of simplicity, macOS has beautiful animations and transparency that can draw on system resources—making things look nice…but feeling unpleasantly slow if you have an older or base-model Mac.

How to Do It:

• Open System Settings.
• Navigate to Accessibility > Display.
• Enable the Reduce Transparency option.

This little trick takes a load off your graphics processor, and you’ll feel it immediately.

2- Disable Unnecessary Login Items:

One of the reasons for slow boot times is that applications load on startup without our consent, and these are a waste of resources.

How to Do It:

• System Preferences > General > Login Items.
• Drag to the top unnecessary applications and use the – button to exclude them from startup.
• Scroll down to see background apps, and turn off the ones you don’t need.

This will remove space and speed up the process of your Mac starting.

3- Monitor and Stop Resource-Hogging Apps:

Some apps use too much CPU or memory in the background.

How to Do It:

• Search for and open the Activity Monitor (click on the magnifying glass or press Command + Space, type in “Activity Monitor”).
• In Activity Monitor, click the % CPU or % Memory column to sort processes by highest usage.
• Click on the X button next to unused, high-resource processes and click on Force Quit.

Closing these resource monsters provides an immediate speed increase.

4- Free Up RAM and Disk Space:

Low disk space or low RAM can slow down your Mac’s speed. Regularly freeing up space is necessary for easy functioning.

How to Do It:

• Go to System Settings > General and select Storage.
• Remove unused apps by clicking them and selecting Delete.
• Turn on Optimize Storage to automatically delete watched movies or TV shows (they can be redownloaded).
• Enable Empty Trash Automatically, it will empty the trash after 30 days.
• Open Finder, navigate to Downloads, and delete files that are no longer needed.
• You want to keep 20-25% of your storage open.

These are the things that help make sure your Mac has plenty of room to function smoothly.

5- Update macOS and Apps:

Old software could lead to a performance problem. Update#1: The updates frequently consist of crucial performance tweaks, memory saving, and fixes.

How to Do It:

• Search for macOS updates by going to System Preferences > General > Software Update.
• Open the App Store and click Updates on the left, and install any app updates available.

Updating your system and apps will make it faster.

6- Rebuild the Spotlight Index:

If your Spotlight Search is lagging or just not returning results quickly, the underlying index might be damaged.

How to Do It:

• Open System Settings > Siri & Spotlight, then choose the option labeled Spotlight Privacy.
• Click the plus (+) button, choose your primary hard drive (for example, Macintosh HD), then click OK.
• 30 seconds to 1 minute after, go back into Spotlight Privacy, now click on the Hard Drive and remove it with [-] minus.

This is going to rebuild the Spotlight index, and in turn will result in better performance next time around.

7- Reset PRAM or NVRAM (for Intel Macs):

Resetting PRAM/NVRAM on Intel-based Macs can help fix problems with system settings, like startup disk, display resolution, and other things that are affected by the NVRAM.

How to Do It:

• Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M2, M3, M4): Hold down the power button for around 20 seconds.
• Intel-based Macs:
  • • Shut down your Mac.
    • Turn it on but immediately press and hold the keys, Option + Command + P+ R for around 20 seconds (wait till you hear two startup chimes).
    • Release the keys.

Do this infrequently unless you have had some hardware issues.

8- Run First Aid in Disk Utility:

Disk errors and performance If a disk is experiencing an error, this can cause handset issues. Running of First Aid to check and repair disks for minor issues.

How to Do It:

• Launch Spotlight Search and search for Disk Utility.
• Choose Macintosh HD and click First Aid at the summit.
• Click Run, then Continue. It can take several minutes, and you may see that your Mac is unresponsive.
• When the process is done, choose Done and open Disk Utility.

This step preserves disk health for the long term and corrects small problems.

9- Clear System and Browser Caches:

Caches are meant to speed up processes, but over time, they can build up and slow down your Mac.

How to Do It:

Safari Caches:

• Open Safari and navigate to Settings > Advanced, then enable Show Features for Web Developers.
• Choose Empty Caches from the Develop menu.

System Caches:

• Open Finder, then click Go > Computer and choose Macintosh HD > Library.
• Open the Caches folder, highlight all files(Command + A), right-click and then move to bin.
• Go back to the Library folder, look under Logs and select all files before deleting.

Note: Before clearing caches and deleting files, make sure to back up your Mac with Time Machine as you never want to delete a file that might turn out being necessary.

10- Restart Your Mac Regularly:

Many people keep their Macs running day and night, but if you are in the habit of putting your computer to sleep or letting it sit for extended periods without rebooting, there are a lot of temporary files, memory leaks, and other inactive processes taking up space.

How to Do It:

• Restart your Mac weekly by using the Apple Menu > Restart.

Adhering to this simple habit ensures that your system continues running smoothly.

Conclusion:

Using these 10 simple fixes, you can greatly increase the performance of your Mac without hardware or third-party software. From limiting visual fluff to emptying caches and regularly restarting, each step zeroes in on common performance bottlenecks. Begin with these steps today, and you’ll have a Mac that’s faster and more responsive. Have you experimented with any of these adjustments? Let me know in the comments and come back for more tech tips to keep your gear running at its best.