Why Macs slow down, and how to speed them up again.

 

Has your Mac computer slowed right down? Do programmes take ages to load

instead of seconds? Is the dreaded spinning rainbow wheel driving you round the bend?

 

A slow Mac can be very frustrating.  Especially when time is money, and you're

having to keep waiting for your computer to catch up with what you've told it to do.

 

There are many reasons for a Mac computer to run slow.

• Viruses or other malware

  • These are programmes that unscrupulous programmers install on your Mac without your knowledge.  They often do this by tricking you into downloading what you think is a programme you wanted, but it contains hidden code.  Some malware is just annoying (perhaps it will display lots of adverts on your screen), but some is dangerous (such as when it steals your financial data).  Either way, it slows your Mac down.

• Lack of spare disk space

  • A lack of spare disk space can slow your Mac down because it keeps having to move files around to locate the space your programmes need to operate correctly. 

• Corruption of data on your hard disk or Solid State Drive (SSD).

  • Data can become corrupted for many reasons.  It's often after the Mac was turned off suddenly without going through the proper shutdown procedure.  Corrupted data can cause programmes to crash and very often slow your Mac down.

• Unnecessary applications loading (some of which you've possibly forgotten you ever had!)

  • Macs can load more than one programme at a time on startup.  This is useful if you always use the same applications every day and want to reduce loading times during the day by opening them all when you first turn on your Mac.  This has a downside though.  Loading in a large number of programmes that you don't yet need uses up valuable RAM.  Eventually, you run out of available RAM, so the Mac starts to 'swap' data out of RAM and writes it to your hard disc to release RAM.  The dreaded spinning rainbow wheel appears, and you can only wait for it to finish.

• Preference settings being incorrect

  • The Mac has hundreds of different settings that you can change to make it work just the way you want it.  But if you make errors when setting these settings, it can have a significant impact on the speed the Mac runs.

• ... and several more

 

 

TekWizard speeds up Macs all the time; if you'd like our help, just click here!