Four Ways to Speed Up Your Mac
Macs are known for their blazing speeds and quickness. However, sometimes things just don’t seem to be going as smoothly as they should. There are many apps such as Onyx and MainMenu that can help speed it up, but I tend to use those as a last resort. When my Mac slows down, I go through this little checklist:
The Obvious: Check your Dock!
I’m sure all of you know this, but it’s a really common mistake made by new Mac users. Unlike Windows, closing an app does not equal quitting an app. Some apps, like Preview, are particularly stubborn in this respect. So, step one is to check for little black arrows. The best way to avoid this problem in the first place is to use ⌘+Q to quit apps, instead of clicking the red bubble. Not only does this avoid leaving apps open, it also saves time. Not all running apps are shown in the Dock; some apps may leave some processes, or “helper apps” running after they quit. Open Activity Monitor (Applications/Utilities) and sort the processing by “Real Memory” and “% CPU” to see what might be taking up resources. One common problem process is “truebluenvironment”, which is related to Classic on PPC machines. Also make sure to check your Menu Bar, some apps also hide here instead of the Dock.
Clean Up! Desktop Messiness
Every folder you keep on your desktop is treated like an open Finder window. Not only that, but that kind of disorganization slows you down anyway. On my desktop, I have a folder called “Box” where I put things I’m working on. That way, instead of dozens of files clogging my desktop, I have one folder with dozens of files clogging it up.
Photo Slideshows: Just Another Slowdown
The photo slideshow desktop feature is one that many people use. I know some people that even have it changing every 5 seconds. However, look at it this way; you wouldn’t do work with iPhoto running a slideshow all the time, would you? It’s the same principle. A constant movie in the background slows things down. Change it to a less frequent time period, like 15 minutes or a half hour. You still get a new picture almost every time you look at your desktop, but your machine will run more smoothly as well.
Your Choice Holy Man: Choose Wisely
Are you one of those people that pop open MS Word for everything? Do you open an audio file in iTunes for one use, then delete it from the library? Do you do the same with images in iPhoto? TextEdit, QuickTime, and Preview are all better options for… well, previewing files. When a smaller, faster app will do the job, choose it instead of a more full-featured bloated one.
I hope these tips, although they may be somewhat obvious, help you out. What do you do to keep your Mac running at its fastest?
One handy thing I do is be rigorous and ruthless with hard disk space. A full HD will slow things down. I don’t keep files I am sure I won’t need, I turn old documents into PDFs and store them sing Yep, I used XSlimmer to trim down the apps on my Mac, and keep my iTunes library lean and mean. Disk space is precious, and also helps keep your mac tidy and fast.
One thing that I’ve done is to get rid of all of the dock animations, gives you a little extra memory for when you’re on the edge.
Don’t you mean “Four Ways to Speed Up Your Mac?”
Cleaning your desktop is huge… takes me twice as long to finish booting up when my desktop is very messy.
I have a few apps/settings I use to keep my Powerbook G4 running fast (this mostly help G4 owners like myself):
1) Unsanity’s Shadowkiller (Removes shadows in Mac OS X)
2) iDefrag (There’s a debate whether or not you should defrag Mac OS X, I believe you should. I use the “quick online” defrag option that will defrag user files not in use)
3) Disk Inventory X (Shows how disk space is being used, so I can find those big files I that occupy space)
4) Disable Dashboard (Many programs can help you do this, you can also use the command: “defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES” without quotes)
5) Minimize to the Dock using the scale effect (You can change this in the Dock options in System Preferences)
Having items on your desktop does not slow down your computer, however it does slow your start-up of the desktop.
Its a proven fact, look it up!
great tips, already do all of ‘em
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One more way to quickly preview almost any item on your Mac is to select the file and then hit your space bar. Flip through ppt or word files without even opening them! You can even watch a movie without opening the file by selecting it and then using the arrow on the thumbnail.