How to Make Your Mac Faster: 10 Proven Tips to Boost Performance

Is your Mac running slower than usual? There are several simple ways to improve its performance. Start by restarting your Mac to clear temporary processes and free up system resources. You should also remove unnecessary files and applications to create more free storage space.

How to Speed Up Your Mac

Try these in order from easiest to more impactful:

1. Restart your Mac
   A restart clears temporary files and can fix processes that are consuming resources.

2. Check what’s slowing it down
   Open Activity Monitor → CPU and Memory. Look for apps using unusually high CPU or memory.

3. Free up storage
   Go to  → System Settings → General → Storage. Remove large, unnecessary files and old downloads. Try to keep a reasonable amount of free space.

4. Reduce startup apps
   Go to System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions and remove apps you don't need starting automatically.

5. Update macOS and apps
   Go to System Settings → General → Software Update. Updates can include performance and bug fixes.

6. Close browser tabs and extensions
   Safari, Chrome, and other browsers can consume substantial memory. Remove extensions you don't use.

7. Check for apps running in the background
   In System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions, disable unnecessary background activity.

8. Turn down visual effects
   System Settings → Accessibility → Display → enable Reduce motion and Reduce transparency if you prefer performance over effects.

9. Find and remove large files
   In Storage, review Documents, Applications, and Downloads. Video files, old installers, and unused applications are common culprits.

10. If it's still slow, identify the bottleneck
    The solution differs depending on whether you're running out of RAM, storage, CPU capacity, or dealing with an aging battery/thermal issue.